# UFOs: The Secret Evidence



## Anthony G Williams (Sep 12, 2010)

This is a two-hour UK TV programme by aerospace journalist Nick Cook, who decided to step outside his comfort zone and take a critical look at the case for unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and the possible explanations for the phenomenon. 

The story begins in WW2 with the frequent reporting by RAF bomber crews on night raids over Germany of "foo fighters"; bright lights appearing to move around them.  These have never been clearly explained, beyond the fact that very tired and frightened men in a state of permanent stress may be prone to hallucinations which may be "infectious"; if one says he saw something, others may too. Another possible explanation lies in secret Nazi projects such as those conducted in the Wenceslas Mine in the Sudeten Mountains, as reported after the war by a German officer who was based there. As well as vague reports of a "bell" reputedly connected with antigravity research, there is the massive above-ground structure of the "flytrap" which still exists today; a large reinforced-concrete circular framework, apparently with provision for a massive electric power input, for which there is still no explanation. 

The focus then switches to Roswell in New Mexico in 1947, with perhaps the most famous UFO story of all; the wreckage of some artificial object of which there are various conflicting reports, ranging from a weather balloon to an alien spacecraft complete with aliens. However, this was only one of many UFO reports from this area, most of which can probably be attributed to the unusual atmospheric conditions which create illusions such as lenticular clouds. Cook interviews several witnesses with conflicting points of view and examines what was going on at the time at the nearby White Sands airbase. Here some 200 German scientists had been based in the years after WW2 as a result of Operation Paperclip, the effort to recruit as many scientists involved in advanced research as possible. At that time the USA was engaged in developing a wide variety of experimental aircraft (including the saucer-shaped Vought XF5U "Flying Flapjack") but the most likely explanation for the Roswell incident was the secret Skyhook project to send huge unmanned photographic reconnaissance balloons over the USSR, which regularly drifted over the Roswell area. Most significantly, Cook obtained evidence that the UFO stories were deliberately encouraged by the CIA as a disinformation scheme to distract Soviet attention from such recce projects (involving planes as well as balloons). This may account for the fact that the USAAF/USAF kept changing its story over the wreckage, and for the existence of one official report which stated that the UFOs may well be alien spacecraft. 

One series of sightings for which there is still no adequate explanation, however, concerns the moving formations of lights in the sky widely observed over Washington in 1952. Such was the public concern that astronomer J Allen Hynek was tasked with looking into the question (I recall reading his book on Project Blue Book decades ago). He was able to dismiss the vast majority of sightings as misperceptions but acknowledged that there was no adequate explanation for a small percentage of them. Furthermore, he was only able to examine civilian reports: the potentially much more valuable ones from military pilots were excluded.

The 1960s saw a new development: the growth of "close encounters of the third kind", in which figures were reported walking next to a landed UFO. The most striking report came in 1964 from a police officer called Zamora, who was patrolling in the area of the White Sands base. After considering alternative ideas, Cook identifies the most likely explanation as a secret USAF project based on a development of the unsuccessful Canadian Avro Avrocar "flying saucer", to which the USAF had bought the rights.

There was a great increase in UFO sightings in the UK in the late 1960s, possibly related to a secret US deployment of the SR-71 strategic reconnaissance plane (which may also have been responsible for many UFO sightings around the Nellis USAF base; the notorious "Area 51"). Cook then looks at the series of cases of animal mutilation in the area of Los Alamos in 1976-86 which have been attributed to alien experiments, but he considers more likely to have been a covert US testing and monitoring programme.

The Soviet Union also carried out an investigation into military UFO reports from 1977 to 1990, attributing many of them to missile launches, but concluded that the evidence was inconclusive and that some were unexplained.

Finally comes the period of "alien abductions", which goes back to the 1950s but became an epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s with no fewer than two million Americans claiming to have been abducted. Cook attributes this to a "need to believe", with many of the characteristics of a religion.

In conclusion, UFO sightings can be grouped into various categories. As Hynek identified in the 1950s, the vast majority are a result of misperception of ordinary phenomena: clouds, astronomical objects or routine man-made ones such as aircraft, spacecraft and balloons (the recent craze for flying illuminated "Chinese lanterns" has caused another surge in UFO reports). For nearly all of those which cannot be accounted for in this way, the most likely explanation is that of military "black projects"; it is significant that the CIA encouraged the UFO hypothesis as a way of covering up such activities. The epidemic of alien abduction reports seems most likely to have been the result of a kind of mass hysteria, strongly emotional and quasi-religious. 

This still leaves a very small percentage of reports which cannot be explained in any of these ways and remain genuine mysteries. However, it is worth bearing in mind that the U of UFO stands for "unidentified" - which simply means that at the moment we do not have enough information to identify the cause of the sightings. It is a pity that the "alien spacecraft hypothesis" enthusiasts have adopted UFOs since this makes scientists - and even serious journalists - reluctant to consider the issue for fear of losing professional credibility. All credit to Cook for analysing this intriguing subject objectively.

(An extract from my SFF blog)


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## Starbeast (Sep 12, 2010)

Sounds like the documentary summed it all up, aliens from other worlds or dimensions and flying machines from elsewhere other than Earth never exsisted It's all just simple fantasy from people with over-active imaginations that want to believe in something that can not be possible. Yes Anthony, Mr Cook's should be credited for his indepth objective analyzation on a trivial subject.


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## skeptical (Sep 13, 2010)

Some years ago, I was on holiday at New Zealand's Great Barrier Island.   At the time, the NZ navy was conducting exercises off the coast, and I stood on a cliff watching them.   Helicopters flying back and forth.   Loud booming noises.   Searchlights.   This went on into the night.

A couple of days later, there were headlines in the local paper about UFO's seen off Great Barrier Island.

I have to ask :   With all those navy people out there, why did they not notice the UFO's?


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## The Procrastinator (Sep 13, 2010)

I saw a UFO once. Genuine article, an Unidentified Flying Object. Was with a group of friends, including a scientist, and we were all at a loss to explain it. Just a flashing light, a bit brighter than a bright star (we get nice bright stars down here) - the kind of regular pulsing light you get with aircraft, only this had nothing you could call a flight path - it was all over the place, though it seemed to confine itself to a small part of the sky - very close to the handle of The Saucepan for Aussies, near Orion's Belt for everyone else. We watched it flashing about for ten minutes or so, a long time for something to jump about in the sky - then the pulsing light began to fade, seemingly in a straight line, as if travelling directly away from us. No idea what it was, except Unidentified. Very Unidentified.


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## Anthony G Williams (Sep 13, 2010)

Even the most apparently bizarre events can have simple explanations.

Some years ago I was walking in a countryside which had a lot of dry stone walls. I looked over a small field and saw on the other side of the field a bicycle, with no-one on it, running down the length of the wall. This was an impossible event but it was happening right on front of my eyes. Shortly afterwards the explanation became clear. The other side of the wall was a lane, and the bicycle had been attached to the roof-rack of a car which happened to be the same height as the wall.


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## The Procrastinator (Sep 13, 2010)

This is true. But the subject remains intriguing because of the inexplicable nature of some sightings/phenomena. It could mean that one day we will be able to explain it - it could be that they are genuine alien sightings.

Starbeast I don't mean to lump you in with this, I know you've seen something yourself, but you do have to admit there's an awful lot of people with overactive imaginations out there! Even people with reasonable critical faculties can believe they saw something when they in fact dreamed it (because the brain uses the same part to process both real and imagined images) (a colleague of mine started painting a particular bird on our pottery, thinking she had seen it in my bird book - one day I asked her about it as it was no colour combination I knew of, and she got the book to show me - she even remembered which page she saw it on - and hey presto it didn't exist! She laughed and laughed. But we kept doing the colour combination because it looked nice ). I myself have a memory from childhood that I grew up thinking was real, in fact I always blamed my snake phobia on it, but my mother says it never happened as far as she knows and I probably imagined it (yes, I have a very good imagination).

I know that I saw the UFO because there were a group of us there and we all agreed we saw the same thing, and talked about it for days as you can imagine. Having seen the movement of the thing in question I find it very hard to think of it as an experimental vehicle of any kind, or a weather balloon, etc. But I'm keeping an open mind.


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## skeptical (Sep 13, 2010)

I have seen at least three UFO's.

The spoiler is that I have a rational explanation for all three.   However, there are lots of people out there that will see what I saw and not see the rational explanation I deduced.   Instant alien!


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## Anthony G Williams (Sep 13, 2010)

Perception and memory certainly can play tricks - in fact, enough research has been done to reveal that eye-witness testimony is among the least reliable there is.

Even when there is hard, physical evidence, it can still be seriously misleading. Many years ago there was a programme on UK TV concerning a UFO sighting. A passenger on an internal flight had a cine camera and had been filming out of the window. When the film was developed, he had a shock: a small dot in the distance rapidly enlarged to a lens-shaped object which briefly hovered alongside the plane before rushing away again at incredible speed. The film was shown on TV and it was extremely convincing; the image was sharp and clear, and there were irregular white markings which could not be identified along the rim of the object. The cameraman was entirely credible and was shaken by it himself. I was also rather shaken, because I've never seen such convincing evidence for what looked like an alien craft. 

Fortunately the programme producer had an enquiring mind and was not disposed to jump to conclusions. He borrowed the man's camera, loaded it with the same type of film, and gave it to a professional cameraman who sat in the same seat of the same aeroplane following the same route, and started playing about with the camera. It wasn't long before he saw the same thing, and he discovered that he could make it come and go just by shifting position slightly. 

A close inspection of the window revealed what was happening: the window glass had a bevelled edge, and this was refracting a distorted image of the tailplane, making a section of it appear to be detached and floating in mid-air. The white markings around the rim were just where the paint had worn off on the leading edge of the tailplane. So as the camera lens was moved slightly to one side of the bevelled area, the "UFO" could be made to appear and disappear.

That was a real object lesson, both in not believing what your eyes appear to be showing you, and in how to investigate such reports.


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## River Boy (Sep 13, 2010)

I saw a light in the sky once - couldn't make out the shape, just a light against a dark cloud - that I would have dismissed as a plane had I not realised it was travelling in circular motions.

Any idea what that was? I know of no plane moving that way, or anything else. Though I have an open mind to aliens existing and visiting the earth I don't believe in any of the 80s & 90s Ufology wave as anything more than an urban myth created by an over-imaginative US. Anyone know if UFOs/aliens were part of the popular imagination before people like HG Wells started to use them in popular fiction?


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## J-WO (Sep 13, 2010)

There was lots of sighting of what the press dubbed 'scareships' in Victorian times--basically airships of mysterious origin. As memory serves they were spotted in America, UK and Australia. Probably other places as well.

The pilots were generally held to be human, though.


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## StormFeather (Sep 13, 2010)

I saw an interesting documentary on Sky Anytime the other day, titled 'Ancient Aliens'. It was looking at the origins of primitive religions around the world and the similarities in beliefs of people who lived hundreds or thousands of miles apart.

I can't remember all the details as I had some distractions, but it did seem quite interesting. The key points as I recall went something like (but not necessarily in this order - it's just how I'm remembering them)


many religions talked about their 'gods' coming to them on flaming chariots or horses from the sky. In China there was one ruler who appeared on a flame breathing dragon, stayed for a while and put in place much of what went on to make the country successful, and then disappeared (I don't know anything about Chinese history to know if this is just a legend or if there was such a ruler)
many of the 'experts' commented that to primitive peoples, who had no other words or experience to describe something like a space craft, they had to use the language they had to explain extra-ordinary things

Many icons of gods from different religions, the carved statues etc, seem to depict masks or helmets on their gods
In certain cases (sorry, struggling to recall the particulars now) some of the information that was imparted to the people of where their gods had come from, indicated the stars. I think there was mention of at least 2 religions that mentioned Orion, and had maps or drawings to indicate a particular star or system that was only officially identified in the last century.
Nearly forgot. One of the key men to have identified the DNA structures sincerely believes that the chances of our DNA developing in the way it had is extremely unlikely. I believe the analogy was, 'It'd be more likely for a tornado to go through a scrap yard and build a fully functioning jumbo jet, than for our DNA to develop in the way that it has without some help.' He's since come to more conclusions that we didn't happen by chance (I think he's still alive, but again the name eludes me - others I'm sure would know)
Now, it may or may not be true, but they made a very interesting case, and went to many different sites around the world to look at the evidence, such as they presented on the programme.

I don't know if that counts as 'popular imagination'?

NB - just read through. Please accept apologies for being so sketchy with the details - too tired really. I've just googled 'Ancient Aliens' and here is just one of the links to the documentary (it's in several parts here)

UFO Files - Ancient Aliens#

Note - if I what I posted didn't match up to the documentary, I apologise, but I just don't have time to watch it through again.


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## skeptical (Sep 13, 2010)

The problem with documentaries like "Ancient Aliens' is that the makers are not really too worried about the truth - just about what is sensational - and they overlook a hell of a lot of evidence that might contradict their thesis.

For example ; it has often been said that the statues on Easter Island could not have been moved into place by the primitive polynesians who carved them, and thus it must have been aliens who did it.   This ignores the simple fact that anthropologists have, in fact, worked out how the polynesians could have done it, and proved it by doing the same.  (It involves flax ropes tield to the top of the statues, and 'rocking' them from one place to another).


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## StormFeather (Sep 13, 2010)

Oh, I completely agree that the makers would have only included what fitted their hypothesis. 

But, I was intrigued with the DNA guy, apparently happily giving his name to this theory. He seems a rational, grounded bloke.

Anyway, interesting nonetheless? 

One of the things I took from it was that even if none of it were true, there is enough possible evidence to give a good sf writer plenty of ground to write something that others would believe is the truth. Afterall, there is plenty of evidence that you don't need real evidence to convince people of the truth


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## skeptical (Sep 13, 2010)

I probably should, in the interests of honesty, make a policy statement here.

I try to live up to my nom de plume, and be a good skeptic.  Skepticism is vital to the search for truth, and is a key ingredient in science.

Let me list three of the dictums of skepticism.

1.   If you hear hoofbeats in the night, think horses, not zebras.

2.  Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.

3.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

In other words, the proper explanation for anything strange is probably something very ordinary.  We like to be open to new ideas, but tend to reject that which is silly.   With strange ideas, the stranger it is, the stronger the evidence required to make the idea acceptable.  Most of this fits into the realm of 'common sense', except that there seem to be a hell of a lot of people lacking this essential commodity.

In relation to the idea that ancient humans were assisted by aliens, who used their high tech to build with, we need very strong evidence.   Simply pointing out that some ancient engineering work, like pyramids, stonehenge, or Easter Island statues, might have been difficult to create ....
Well that logic aint gonna cut it.   We need *much* stronger evidence.

The insistence of a good skeptic on stronger evidence is not a sign that he has a closed mind.  It is a sign of someone who can think rationally.


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## Anthony G Williams (Sep 14, 2010)

I agree with Skeptical. Also, the kind of stories in Ancient Aliens were first being put about decades ago (look for books by Von Daniken) and have been thoroughly discredited.

Humans share DNA with all other living things on this planet. As far as complexity is concerned, I was reading today that the genome of wheat is five times larger than that of humans. The "DNA expert" was falling into the common fallacy of misunderstanding probability, and his views are not supported by mainstream geneticists.


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## Starbeast (Sep 14, 2010)

*.....................*



The Procrastinator said:


> Starbeast I don't mean to lump you in with this, I know you've seen something yourself........


 

"....."


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Sep 14, 2010)

Mmm.....

Jury's out on deliberation on this one for me. I'm not discounting the possibility of intelligent life beyond this planet, and in fact I do believe there is.

What I do not believe is that most people who claim to have seen an alien spacecraft actually have. (And notice how I say alien spacecraft here and not UFO-since when did UFO equate alien spacecraft 100%?)


The thing is, you have to realize that no other planet in our solar system has been proven capable of supporting intelligent life and no pictures or pod landings we've made on these planets have sent back any evidence of intelligent life. Our solar system consists of eight full planets, numerous "dwarf planets" and various asteroids and satellites.

Mercury and Venus are considered far too close to the Sun to support intelligent life, and Venus' toxic cloud cover further makes it an unlikely candidate.

Mars? Thin atmosphere, desolate, the surface of Mars colder than Antarctica in winter, and very poor soil. Mars has also been scoured from hell to high water and no solid sign of intelligent life has ever been discovered and proven.

Jupiter? No. Aside from the fact that Jupiter has winds that can reach above an F5 tornado, it, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are all gas giants with no solid surface. Those four are discounted.

Pluto? Just the opposite of Mercury and Venus. Being generally the furthest "planet" from the Sun, it would be far too cold and dark to support intelligent life.

I'm not going beyond our own solar system, considering the fact that the Earth is anywhere from 91 million to 94.5 million miles from the sun.

Pluto is anywhere from approximately 2.8 billion to 4.7 billion miles from the sun. While intelligent life from our own solar system could probably reach our planet within any conceivable lifetime, we have to consider that we have all but proven that intelligent life does NOT exist within our solar system, and our galaxy is thousands of light years across, so any other solar system within our galaxy may be far enough away to be beyond the reach of any alien space travelers.

Therefore, I am highly skeptical of these alien spacecraft sightings.


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## skeptical (Sep 14, 2010)

The word 'UFO' just means a flying thing that is not yet identified.   In that sense of the word, there are numerous genuine UFO's out there.   I have seen several myself, that remained unidentified for a few minutes, at least, till I had worked out what they were.

The idea that they might be extraterrestrial aliens is extraordinary, and thus requires extraordinary evidence.   This I have not seen.   Thus, it is rational to continue to consider them as purely terrestrial phenomena, though not always easy to work out the actual mechanism.

Assuming that the physics principle, restricting velocities to speed of light or less is correct, it would take an alien craft many decades to reach the Earth.   This alone makes it highly unlikely that alien craft would visit the Earth on anything but very rare occasions, even if they existed.


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Sep 14, 2010)

skeptical said:


> The word 'UFO' just means a flying thing that is not yet identified.   In that sense of the word, there are numerous genuine UFO's out there.   I have seen several myself, that remained unidentified for a few minutes, at least, till I had worked out what they were.
> 
> The idea that they might be extraterrestrial aliens is extraordinary, and thus requires extraordinary evidence.   This I have not seen.   Thus, it is rational to continue to consider them as purely terrestrial phenomena, though not always easy to work out the actual mechanism.
> 
> Assuming that the physics principle, restricting velocities to speed of light or less is correct, it would take an alien craft many decades to reach the Earth.   This alone makes it highly unlikely that alien craft would visit the Earth on anything but very rare occasions, even if they existed.




I think that is what I just said, Skeptical, albeit in a very long-winded form. And I DID point out that "UFO" doesn't automatically assume alien spacecraft-which I why when talking about the extraterrestrial side of it I used the term "alien spacecraft" rather than "UFO".

And the last bit I too explained, basing my reasoning off the current idea of physics that uninterrupted light speed is the absolute maximum speed barrier possible in the universe. And I know we don't always see eye to eye on what we believe and what we believe needs proof, but I do agree with you on this one in that I do need extraordinary, undeniable proof of their existing here before I can believe that any have actually visited or are visiting.

Now if an alien spacecraft landed in my backyard from the sky and a creature stepped out that I knew for a fact was not of this world, THEN I would believe it. Otherwise, I perceive a person's claim with skepticism.


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## skeptical (Sep 14, 2010)

Karn

Good that we are in agreement.
I am not closed minded on the idea of aliens.   Defined as an extraterrestrial intelligence.   The universe is so big that we cannot exclude the possibility that they may exist, and even be living within a star system close enough to interact with humans on some level.

However, as you said, to accept that some of the UFO sightings are ET aliens will require very powerful evidence.


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## Moonbat (Sep 14, 2010)

> 1. If you hear hoofbeats in the night, think horses, not zebras.


 
what if you are in Africa and on Safari?


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Sep 14, 2010)

Moonbat said:


> what if you are in Africa and on Safari?




I do not think zebras are nocturnal anyway.

But a better analogy might have been, think horses, not demons?


Or have I finally cracked?


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## Interference (Sep 14, 2010)

In an infinite universe, all things are not only possible but probable - Douglas Adams.  All cases are now rested - probably.


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## skeptical (Sep 14, 2010)

The "think horses, not zebras" analogy is pretty close to perfect.   The suggestion is that the ordinary explanation is probably correct, but not absolutely certain.    Sketicism is about finding the most likely explanation for phenomena, but not totally excluding unlikely ones.   Sure, zebras are a possibility, but an unlikely one.  And that is the point.


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## StormFeather (Sep 14, 2010)

Ooops - think I gave the wrong impression with this:



StormFeather said:


> Afterall, there is plenty of evidence that you don't need real evidence to convince people of the truth


 
What I meant was that there are plenty of people who believe their version of the truth, without having a shred of real evidence to back it up. And many of those carry on believing such 'truth', even when presented with mountains of real, substantiated evidence to the contrary. I have the MMR/Wakefield thing particularly in mind here - people still believe him despite the discreditation of his research. But it seems the case for many other such things. 

I wasn't casting aspertions on anyone here, and apologise if I gave that impression. 

Whilst I found the documentary interesting, I found that more than anything it offered a start/background to many potential stories, if only I had the time to write them.


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## mosaix (Sep 14, 2010)

Interference said:


> In an infinite universe, all things are not only possible but probable - Douglas Adams.  All cases are now rested - probably.



But one of those possible and therefore probable things is: UFOs don't exist.


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## HareBrain (Sep 15, 2010)

Interference said:


> In an infinite universe, all things are not only possible but probable - Douglas Adams.


 
Maybe so, but irrelevant to our universe, which isn't infinite (just very big).


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## River Boy (Sep 15, 2010)

HareBrain said:


> Maybe so, but irrelevant to our universe, which isn't infinite (just very big).


 
'very big' is the worst description I've heard of the Universe.


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## Interference (Sep 15, 2010)

In a very big universe all things are not only very possible but probably probable. 

However, I think Mr Adams is still right.  He posits the Infinite before drawing his conclusion.

How is Universe defined, btw?  Is "encapsulating all things" no longer a relevant description, or have the boffins subdivided The Totality of All somewhat?


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## skeptical (Sep 15, 2010)

'Universe' no longer, necessarily, includes everything.  There are a lot of physicists who now postulate a 'multiverse', which includes many universes.

The Everett idea ( a quantum physics interpretation)  of many universes postulates essentially a number so high that it might as well be infinite.

The super-string theory multiverse 'only' includes E500 universes.   That is, 1 followed by 500 zeroes.

If either of these ideas turns out to be correct, I think we can pretty much assume that anything that is remotely possible will exist somewhere, in some universe.


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## Parson (Sep 16, 2010)

mosaix said:


> But one of those possible and therefore probable things is: UFOs don't exist.


Of course UFOs exist. They are simply "Unidentified Flying Objects" of which there are likely thousands a day which are Unidentified by someone. If you mean that no one knows what they are, then there are still several a year. But if you mean star ships from other planets, these we have not ever seen. (On my dark days, I think "Never will" see.)


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## HareBrain (Sep 16, 2010)

River Boy said:


> 'very big' is the worst description I've heard of the Universe.


 
Aww, and I worked so hard on it.

Very, very big?


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## J-WO (Sep 16, 2010)

In a very, very big universe, all things are fairly likely.


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## mosaix (Sep 17, 2010)

Parson said:


> Of course UFOs exist. They are simply "Unidentified Flying Objects" of which there are likely thousands a day which are Unidentified by someone. If you mean that no one knows what they are, then there are still several a year. But if you mean star ships from other planets, these we have not ever seen. (On my dark days, I think "Never will" see.)



Quite right Parson. I was using the word in the sense implied by by the conspiracy theorists.


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