Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

UFOs In the News

Posted by kdawson on from the green-and-the-gray dept.

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.

26 of 449 comments (clear)

  1. Re:US Airspace full enough already by Lithdren · · Score: 5, Funny

    But these aliens may be illegal, or terrorists, or maybe even Iraqi!

    I for one welcome our unidentified overlords...I think, Im not really sure who they are yet. Where'd I leave my foil hat...

  2. From CNN by rrohbeck · · Score: 5, Funny

    At least one O'Hare controller, union official Craig Burzych, was amused by it all.

    "To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable," he said.

    --
    thegodmovie.com - watch it
    1. Re:From CNN by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They must of been looking at the big Interchange near there
      http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=60016&ie=UT F8&z=15&ll=41.987057,-87.870326&spn=0.014195,0.042 787&t=k&om=1
      http://whereroadsmeet.8k.com/Interchange/il-i90-i1 90.htm

    2. Re:From CNN by BakaHoushi · · Score: 4, Funny

      But no self-respecting alien would use a cloaking device. They are extremely expensive, hard to produce, and not entirely effective.

      Modern aliens rely on a S.E.P. field generator, or "Somebody Else's Problem." The generator creates an image that, when perceived by a sentient mind, automatically stores the data in a sector of the mind that labels things as "somebody else's problem," thus, letting the being ignore the object to the point of seeing right through it.

      And given that this is O'Hare International, I seriously doubt somebody would give a second look at something that was not his own problem.

  3. UFO vs. alien spacecraft by Kelson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:UFO vs. alien spacecraft by s31523 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You know, this is a very good point. I used to work at a place, long before mainstream UAVs, UCAVs and the like, and they had something that when people saw it flying around would call it a UFO. It would hover, move directly vertical, then fly horizontal and turned on a dime. Anyone not in the know seeing this crazy thing fly would call it a UFO and be right, and it certainly wasn't an alien space craft I assure you. I can just imagine all the crazy projects various government agencies and third party companies have going on that result in UFO sightings.

      People just want to think these weird flying things are aliens visiting us. But honestly, if YOU were an alien, with this fantastic technology to fly hundreds of light years to visit another planet with life on it, would you just fly by some stuff then go home? Hell, I wouldn't drive 60 miles look at something and turn around and come home.

    2. Re:UFO vs. alien spacecraft by Jerf · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The reason UFOs are a crock isn't that they are fundamentally impossible in some absolute sense, it's that the line about "If there are aliens that powerful, they aren't going to just buzz us in UFOs" is far, far more true than 1950s scientists could ever have dreamed of.

      Read Accelerando (free eBook available), and consider that nothing in that book is particularly physically implausible.

      It is exceedingly unlikely that aliens that are just like we are now, only with spaceships, would come by and buzz us. At this point it seems far more likely that if any aliens ever do make "contact", it'll be in the form of a fully-automated colony ship that stops somewhere, maybe in the rings of Saturn or the asteroid belt, and proceeds turning our entire Solar System into computronium. All we could do is hope and pray the probe is programmed to do something nice for us, because we sure as hell couldn't stop it.

      Any civilization that has the resources to cross the stars is extremely unlikely to use those resources to build a tin can capable of holding meat-bodies in it, with mass that could instead be made into enough computronium to perform mind-blowing amounts of computation, and blow unspeakable numbers of human-lifetimes worth of energy moving that across the stars, just to buzz humans for no apparently reason. (Yes; in a world of computronium, one standardized human life can be used as measurement of energy.)

      The putative aliens of the UFOs are a product of a very peculiar sort of shortsightedness about the ultimate limits of technology that dates from a relatively narrow understanding of science, and are as out-of-date as the idea that the world only needs five computers. Interestingly, both ideas are out-of-date for the same basic reason...

    3. Re:UFO vs. alien spacecraft by kalirion · · Score: 4, Informative

      "They're made out of meat."
      "Meat?"
      "Meat. They're made out of meat."
      "Meat?"
      "There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."
      "That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"
      "They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
      "So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
      "They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."
      "That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
      "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."
      "Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
      "Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"
      "Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
      "Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
      "No brain?"
      "Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."
      "So ... what does the thinking?"
      "You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."
      "Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
      "Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"
      "Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
      "Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
      "Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"
      "First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."
      "We're supposed to talk to meat."
      "That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."
      "They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
      "Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
      "I thought you just told me they used radio."
      "They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."
      "Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
      "Officially or unofficially?"
      "Both."
      "Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
      "I was hoping you would say that."
      "It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"
      "I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
      "Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
      "So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."
      "That's it."
      "Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't rememb

  4. Re:US Airspace full enough already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I for one welcome our unidentified overlords..

    Unidentified Flying Overlords ... that is a good one :) :)

  5. GWB needs to do something about these aliens by hsmith · · Score: 4, Funny

    like build a wall around the earth

  6. Local Engineers by frinkster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  7. how about a little money? by mateomiguel · · Score: 5, Funny
    The moment the government starts investigating every UFO sighting out there, even just ever group sighting, a ton of money is going to be spent on a something futile...oh wait...it already...


    True, the government should not spend a lot of time and effort investigating unusual phenomena that may or may not have happened. But the government can just spend a little bit of money. Perhaps ten or twenty people in a government agency, say the FBI, were to be assigned to strange and unusual cases such as this. They could be called unknown-variable-files, or unusual-files, or, say, x-files. Well, actually 10 people would be too many. It would be better to try, say, 5, or perhaps even just 2. Yeah, a 2 man team, investigating cases that no one else can solve, working for the FBI. Or even better yet, make it one man and one woman for more sexual tension!

    I think this idea could work, folks!
  8. It Left a Hole in the Clouds by toonerh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:It Left a Hole in the Clouds by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My take is a new stealth military craft - hence all the coverup by the FAA. I don't have a problem with the secret military aircraft theory except for one problem.

      What the hell is a secret military aircraft doing in the middle of the busiest airport in America?

      First, if it's supposed to be a secret, it certainly shouldn't be hovering over an airport. It should be out in a more deserted environment. Second, even if it was some kind of weird test, the fact that it distracted people who were doing things like driving airplanes, repairing airplanes, etc. implies a threat to public safety and I don't think the military would go for that. Finally, the risk that something could go wrong--collision, malfunction, etc.--and end up spilling the beans and potentially injuring people would be really stupid. Even the military isn't that stupid.
  9. Smells like a hoax... by blackmonday · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Smells like a hoax... by geekd · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's exactly the proof we need - a blurry lo-res camera phone pic! Then no one will doubt the existence of our alien overlords.

  10. The French news is the most interesting by maynard · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In 1999 the French government and military released the COMETA report, which essentially stated that UFOs represented some kind of physical phenomena that was unknown and deserved further study. It did not rule out the Extra Terrestrial Hypothesis, which is most amazing given that this report was published and authored by well known French scientists and military commanders. A translation of that report is available (in pdf form) here:

    http://www.cufos.org/cometa.pdf

    (Note that I don't promote cufos.org, nor know anything about the site.)

    1. Re:The French news is the most interesting by maynard · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I witnessed a UFO back in 1994. Here is a description of that event I posted on slashdot:

      http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=48139&ci d=4930168

      Basically, I saw a flying disc perform outrageous maneuvers in broad daylight. I can tell you what that thing was not: it was not a helicopter, not a balloon, and not an airplane. But I can't tell you what it was. I honestly don't know.

      It still bothers me. I still have dreams about the experience. But the rational side of me must separate what I witnessed (a visual image of what appeared to be an object) vs. jumping to the conclusion that it was a some kind of alien craft. It's tenuous at best to claim that I witnessed something strange - to further claim I know what it was, and that it was alien.... well, that's more than even I can take. I have no idea.

      But it still bothers me. And it bothers me even more that even saying this in todays climate is to impugn one's own credibility. Even Michio Kako has publicaly stated that he thinks the issue is worth investigating.

  11. Shouldn't that be illegal alien craft? by edwardpickman · · Score: 4, Funny

    If you want proper funding for UFO research have them declared terrorists threatening our borders and Homeland Security will give you all the money you want. If you filed the right paperwork you could probably get a couple of mill in research grants to calculate the amount of explosive one flying saucer could carry. Just imagine the destruction a UFO crammed full of explosives could cause if it crashed into Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland. Seeing pictures of Mickey Mouse and Goofy splattered across the sidewalk could bring this country to it's knees. The invading UFOs must be stopped!

  12. Correct by dino213b · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  13. Re:US Airspace full enough already by ptbarnett · · Score: 4, Informative
    Yes- but you usually fly your pattern *around* the airport, not right smack dab over the runways, at least, not until you're ready to *land* or *take off* in which case by definition you're going to be flying *below* 800 feet, as at that time you're going to be leaving the pattern behind.

    Aircraft transiting over an airport like O'Hare are vectored directly OVER the airport. When I've done it (albeit at other airports), I was directed to follow the cross-wind runway that is more or less perpendicular to the active runway(s).

    This keeps the transiting aircraft directly above the aircraft ON THE GROUND, but out of the airspace used for landing and takeoff. 1900 feet is a bit low for that, but I've made the transit at no more than 4000 feet AGL.

  14. Feynman quote by oggiejnr · · Score: 4, Funny

    "I believe that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational efforts of terrestrial intelligence rather than the unknown irrational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence"

    Pretty much sums up my attitude to the whole thing as well

  15. Re:Aliens, ghosts, and gods never leave evidence . by aXis100 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The leap of faith required between Aliens and God is an order of magnitude:

    Statistically it's likely that other planets out there support life, and some of them might be advanced enough for space travel. It's a significant but not unrealistic improvement on our own position/technology.

    "God" in the biblical form requires an immense level of magic to explain.

  16. to: Lshelverfn by mysticgoat · · Score: 5, Funny

    As suggested, this message up near the front of postings but buried in 3rd or 4th level I am putting. if(scanSubject(/Lshelverfn/) == is_good) { this buried enough for hiding will be } else { signalWith(flare) <-- like 20 rotations back --> && I will { backUpTalker('ON'); this.Talker('OFF") }.

    Oops. Pardon the above, still need to tweak the english emitter. This somewhat better seems it to be.

    Quick report: Hiding am I yet; can walk the streets and ride "Elevated" but not good yet with face2face. Have deflated boobs as incompatible with facial hair these seeming to be. Still with problems with "left" opposed to "right" with footware. It is subtle. Internetspeak okay-- blend in with ESLs and with the L3373s and specially A-OK with fragment code interspersing. /. anonymizing well & intercepting unproblematical as would be dismissed as juvenile prankyprank and either +5 insightful or -1 doubleplus unfunny. Ping nobody's radar either way this would.

    Ok better on the english emitter, now, I think. I hope the translator routines don't frobnicate on this material. (That is a "joke"; I need to practice those if I am going to pass in F2F situations here).

    Pretest of observation platforms over "airports" has gone well with the notable exception of the one large "airport" near the long big lake. Although that incident has been adequately contained, with the first general news stories not surfacing until 50 rotations after, it demonstrated that we cannot rely on the Acme Cloaking Device Incorporated products. See my last report before I left for this assignment about my concerns with Acme's quality assurance program and let us get it right next time. Request that you hurryup on finding replacements. The opportunity to study the mass religious festivals at these "airports" at the time of Big Bird Feast was lost on this orbit because of this snafu. We definitely want to be prepared for the one next orbit.

    I need to get back into the hot shower before my skin melts again. Will look for your ACK in the Hubble pics.

    Oh, if you NEED to signal me with a flare again, please dial down the intensity. That last one was WAY too noticeable.

  17. Re:So What? by DeathElk · · Score: 4, Funny

    It really pisses me off when people start dropping the "YO" in "YOU". Are you purposely obfuscating your message with poor spelling and bad grammar?

  18. Richard Dolan. by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 4, Interesting
    One of the best researchers in the field of UFO's is Richard Dolan.

    UFOs are not fun and games, they are not delusions. They are real. The phenomenon has involved real technology, doing real things that are not supposed to be possible. This technology, since at least World War Two, has engaged in a confrontational and provocative manner with U.S. military forces on many occasions. It has involved both air space violations and alarmed responses, and has elicited the concern of some of the highest ranking military and intelligence officers in the country.

    We know this because, for a relatively brief period in America's history (primarily the late 1970s and into some of the 1980s), the Freedom of Information Act enabled researchers to obtain official documents from government agencies which clearly demonstrated this. Not that FOIA is officially dead today, but it has had its ups and downs over the years. As far as obtaining UFO-related information, FOIA's moment of glory was long ago, in the post-Watergate and post-Vietnam era.

    Thus, agencies such as the CIA, DIA, FBI, and pick your alphabet-soup agency, which for years had steadfastly denied having anything to do with UFOs, suddenly released thousands of pages of documentation proving the opposite. It is true that, among these officially released documents, there is no absolute smoking gun - e.g. a memo from the President stating "Okay, what do we do about these pesky aliens, anyhoo?" There are, however, quite a few documents that are one cut below this. That is, documents that describe utterly awesome military encounters with the unexplainable.

    Taken individually, such FOIA documents do not prove the existence of UFOs as something "not us." After all, people, even military witnesses, can make mistakes. Radar can be faulty or misinterpreted. But, taken as a whole, the released FOIA documents provide a large body of evidence relating to serious military encounters with UFOs. After you read the first fifty of these, you start to wonder.

    Let's review a couple of these documents. . .

    You can read the whole of his essay, (in two parts).

    The quote from above comes from the second part. The first part is, what I thought, a fascinating historical review of how the world works with regard to secrets.

    Or you can read his book. It comes highly recommended. --This is not your average "Woo woo, Leonard Nimoy looks at UFO's!" book. It only looks at cases reported by multiple airforce/military/police witnesses, (due to their typically being selected for being sane and sound individuals as well as the procedural documentation recorded in each case as a requirement of their jobs). Even though civilian accounts are left out, the book still manages to cover a couple hundred cases from the 40's to the 70's. It also deals in depth with the military and political side of the issue, and easily refutes many of the common misnomers about UFO's, (of which several are represented on this site).

    He doesn't, however, get into what UFO's are here to do. That's a whole other can of worms.

    Here is some channeled work which attempts to shed light on that subject, among others. (Beware, with a group like the one this particular material comes from, a lot of creepy people also come out of the woodwork to spread fear and confusion and lies, etc., in order to stop people from looking. So take everything, including this, with a grain of salt. This is the kind of material and subject matter which makes people want to play a lot of video games and shut out eve