Fear of the unknown.

[Vindekarr]

Over the last few months a large number of UFOs have been sited over various places in the world. Ranging from an enormous spiral in the sky, a "natural looking" aurora like lightblob over the australia, and a bizaar "flying saucer" aircraft that flew over an airport in china-closing it for hours.

 

These sightings are as diverse as the reactions of people to them. The "aurora" a blob of light that slowly floated in the sky along the australian coast some weeks ago, though it appeared entirely inanimate and harmless to some, like some sort of bizaar and not previously encountered natural event, also caused panic for others, who beleived its shear alienness meant it could only be extraterrestrial.

 

Cryptoids are another thing entirely. Wheras UFOs have always been the realm of the lunatic fringe, Cryptids are something all together more mainstream, though talkign about them still is not entirely respectable. Cryptoids are any animal that doesnt fit with a previously discovered type. This can be anything from a "terrestrial cryptid" -completely earthly and normal creature of a new species. And "true cryptids" which are anything from a mythical creature like the loch ness monster and bigfoot, to wierd out of place mutants of all stripes.

 

For the most part cryptozoology ufology and the descriptions of pretty much anything "supernatural" is completely socialy unacceptable in modern scientific society. With people interested it being portrayed as the lunatic fringe. But what are your thoughts on the matter? anything goes here, skepticism, theories, and general debate of all sorts. Just keep it civil and dont troll/flame.

[XanAlderon]

These sightings are as diverse as the reactions of people to them. The "aurora" a blob of light that slowly floated in the sky along the australian coast some weeks ago, though it appeared entirely inanimate and harmless to some, like some sort of bizaar and not previously encountered natural event, also caused panic for others, who beleived its shear alienness meant it could only be extraterrestrial.

 

The lights seen over Australia, although beautiful, did not look particularly alien or frightening. The UFO advocates who believe this to be some sort of magical alien scout ship are really clutching at straws in their explanation of why this could be. I'm all for believing that there's another lifeform out there in the infinite reaches of space, I just don't believe that every satellite or cloud formation is aliens watching us, or cruising past in their star-ships or whatever.

[phoneyLogic]

Good question.

Why do some people automatically think about aliens and flying sousages everytime they see sth "unknown" in the air? Is this just the "branding" they got from the media?

 

There obviously seems to be a group of people who are interested in making folks belive (and fear).

[Pushkatu]

I guess it's in our nature to fear and most likely things that we can't understand have a bigger impact on us. I think it's normal to fear and until someone can prove me the contrary, I'll stick with this idea.

[grannywils]

I think I'm with XanAlderon on this one. I absolutely belive that there are other life forms out there. Why not? I see no reason to think that one planet, i.e. Earth, is the only one with the ability to support life. And I do believe that we have probably seen proof of this from time to time, wheather via ufo sightings, or whatever. However, I do agree that there is sometimes a certain amount of hysteria over every possible satellite or cloud formation as XanAlderon says. And why would we have anything to fear. It should be utterly fascinating. I'm pretty sure we're not being watched, as frankly I doubt that we're very interesting. In fact, we may be the new kids on the block, just learning how to use the tiniest portion of our brains.

[bben46]

Check out the Fermi Paradox - a theory by the very highly respected scientist and physicist Enrico Fermi who worked on the atom bomb as well as many other projects. No tin foil hats here.

 

Here is a very good synopsis without any of the math or scientific jargon attached.

 

The apparent size and age of the universe suggest that many technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations ought to exist.

However, this hypothesis seems inconsistent with the lack of observational evidence to support it.

 

For a more in depth explanation see this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

[TheDarkOne5667]

I saw "UFO's" here.

 

Alright, down to business.

 

Area 51 was a nuclear testing sight. So all Alien theory's were because the USA government did not want the Cold war to go hot. It would be BAD. I do not want real-life Fallout, thanks muchly.

People who say "Aliens" are the same as Hippies. So confused by Propaganda they think Aliens exist. Whilst yes, there may be other life in the cosmos, these may be the same as us, limited by technology. Perhaps one day we will see them, but that is FAR from now.

And in respect to Omnipotent beings (not mentioning God as he is well, a religious debate) they may exist outside the Universe. Somewhere we can't get to, Ever.

[marharth]

We fear what we do not know because we don't know what it can do to us.

 

That is pretty much it, a lot simpler then people would like to think.

 

Also I am ninety percent sure Area 51 is a aircraft testing facility (and still is.)

[LadyMilla]

Check out the Fermi Paradox - a theory by the very highly respected scientist and physicist Enrico Fermi who worked on the atom bomb as well as many other projects. No tin foil hats here.

 

Here is a very good synopsis without any of the math or scientific jargon attached.

 

The apparent size and age of the universe suggest that many technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations ought to exist.

However, this hypothesis seems inconsistent with the lack of observational evidence to support it.

 

For a more in depth explanation see this.

http://en.wikipedia....i/Fermi_paradox

 

I must say I find Fermi's conclusions unfounded. The fault of his reasoning is the assumption that a) we have the ability to observe them and b) they have the willingness to reveal their existence to us.

 

Consider the impact of such revelation on the population of our planet. Many religions would be profoundly shaken by such a discovery. Tensions would rise around the issue of who should benefit from the knowledge gained from the aliens if they are willing to share their technological advances (such tensions may even lead to a global war). I prefer believing that aliens, if they exist, would only resort to observation and the best way to observe a system is to reduce the impact of the observation.

 

And to answer the title of this thread: survival drives us to fear the unknown. Our ancestors feared the dark because predators might lurk in the shadows. See? The bush is moving and shaking strangely - what is there? Could it be a predator or just a few birds? I'd better steer clear just in case. Unknown = uncertain = risk of getting into a dangerous situation.