We are not alone?

[Carol Baynes]

Most old posters are well aware of my spiritual beliefs (for want of a better term) so this doesn't surprise me at all...

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/hom.../08/01288.html

I'm especially insterested in the idea that institutionalised powers are controlling society and have been for a long time. I'm not about to suggest we're being controlled by shape shifting aliens (as Mr. Icke believes) but I don't know what to belive anymore. I see our personal liberties being eroded by the year.

[Andrew Curnow]

That's an interesting read, but I don't quite understand. How can they state that DNA is "extra-terrestrial" just because it doesn't fit our understanding, or our theories, on how DNA works. In this instance, aren't they just using "extra-terrestrial" as an excuse, or a word to hide ignorance?

First fact is, the complete 'program' was positively not written on Earth; that is now a verified fact.

Clearly that's not the case is it - I think if it was, we'd have heard about it rather more prominently than in some online news-sheet!

I'm not necessarily disputing this, but it seems absurd to me, that if something doesn't fit our thinking, we leap to the conclusion that it was put there by aliens.

[Captain Tancredi]

I think I've spotted the same flaw as Andrew- how can you tell if DNA is extraterrestrial unless you have an extra-terrestrial organism to compare it with? Unless they do have an extraterrestrial organism, of course...

[Darren]

created by some kind of "extraterrestrial programmer".

Slartibartfast?

how can you tell if DNA is extraterrestrial unless you have an extra-terrestrial organism to compare it with?

Exactly what I was thinking. And they've got a sketched image of a Human ET? And this article was allowed to be published? Crap.

[Jeff]

A look at the main page of the site shows what kind of a rag it is...

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/headline_news.html

It looks about as legitimate as the National Enquirer... I'm almost surprised there are no Elvis sighting headlines...

I'm not necessarily disputing this, but it seems absurd to me

Are you in politics?

[Captain Tancredi]

While I wouldn't want to rubbish the newspaper on the strength of their website, it does seem to be a Canadian attempt at tabloid journalism and probably therefore willing to give space to some out-there theories. Of course there's no reason why it shouldn't be true, it's just that there are a lot of obvious onjections that the theory needs to overcome.

As regards the idea of faceless organisations controlling our lives- what I think has happened since the Industrial Revolution is that a network of interdependent companies, banks and corporations has evolved, each with shareholdings in each other, hence the facelessness. Big business cultivates friends in government and lures politicians with directorships and the like- after all, it's in everybody's interest for a country to have a healthy economy with the maximum number of people in employment. And in the last half-century, the technology has existed to monitor the most insignificant details of people's lifestyles- and where that data exists, ways will be found of using it. I'd say that the last forty years or so in Britain have been exceptional (in terms of world history) in terms of what people are allowed to do- we could probably have more political diversity, but by and large in terms of personal expression and the ability to live your private life your own way, that's now enshrined in human rights legislation at European level, which it wasn't ten years ago. It's perhaps not surprising then if some people think it's gone too far and seek to roll things back.

[Jon Masters]

Methinks Professor Chang needs to do some more study on how DNA actually works.

Starting with a GCSE in science .

[Carol Baynes]

The problem is I'm far more interested in personal experiences of such things, like Mr. Adamski's, rather than the science.

The stuff about DNA sounded a bit ropey though, I have to say.

If it were true, though, I honestly can't see it being announced on the news. We're so blase about everything these days. You'd need a flying saucer over Washington before we snapped out of our apathy!

[Pip Madeley]

I thought I saw a UFO once.

Turned out to be a hot air balloon.

That's why I'm not an expert on such matters

[Jason Thompson]

I'm far more interested in personal experiences of such things, like Mr. Adamski's, rather than the science.

Just as well. The science in that article is bollocks!

It is also unfortunate that George Adamski is the primary source of encouter stories. I've read one of his books. It was written in the early 1950s. The quotes offered in the article conveniently have aliens looking and sounding just like humans. The book itself describes encounters with aliens from Mars, Venus and Saturn. This was before we sent probes out to those planets. Subsequent discoveries seriously seriously undermine Adamski's claims.

If it were true, though, I honestly can't see it being announced on the news.

This is where we are diametrically opposed in viewpoint. If it were true that there was alien life I really can't see it being covered up. If Adamski really met aliens from Mars or Venus or Saturn, why would NASA, ESA etc. produce such vast amounts of fake material over the past few decades, and continue to spend money sending probes to those planets? If alien life is being covered up, why make things like SETI such public affairs?

[Carol Baynes]

This is where we are diametrically opposed in viewpoint. If it were true that there was alien life I really can't see it being covered up. If Adamski really met aliens from Mars or Venus or Saturn, why would NASA, ESA etc. produce such vast amounts of fake material over the past few decades, and continue to spend money sending probes to those planets? If alien life is being covered up, why make things like SETI such public affairs?

You see, because I do tend to lean towards the idea of the world being run by people who value our ignorance more than our wisdom, I do think the less we know the better for them. I do question how free we are on Planet Earth. Your talking centuries of mind control, through the church, through the state, through institutions of all kinds.
Or more to the point, you will believe what they want you to believe and they will do it so well that you will not think there is anything else to know. EVen science often struggles against 'what is excepted'. Maybe I'm paranoid?

[Jeff]

While I won't argue that religion has been used in an attempt to influence and control social behavior, I think the fact that religion has existed throughout humanity as long as civilization has existed or longer, suggests to me that religion springs from an innate psychological human need rather than being a planned conspiracy by a group or organization.

The people who have money and property have always had more political influence, and of course they have used that influence to ensure the system keeps them and their ancestors rich and keeps the poor poor, but that again is nature rather than a planned conspiracy.

IMO

[Jason Thompson]

Or more to the point, you will believe what they want you to believe and they will do it so well that you will not think there is anything else to know.

Contrary to inexplicably popular belief, knowledge cannot be controlled to that degree. If it were, such things as modern cosmology would never have become accepted because they contradicted mainstream belief at the time. People who want to take control of our thoughts suffer the severe limitation that the world works in certain ways whatever anyone writes or tries to make us believe. Galileo's views prevailed over the religious dogma because they were observably undeniably true.

With regard to contact with extraterrestrials, I want to have answers to the following before I accept that they have ever been here:

1: Why is it that the people who spend the greatest amount of time studying the skies don't show a higher proportion of sightings? It is telling that people who claim lights in the sky are alien craft are often completely unfamiliar with what constitutes normal stuff in the sky.

2: How is it in this age when almost everyone has portable imaging equipment that can capture a picture and send it acorss the globe in seconds we have not had pictures of alien craft or alien beings? A bomb goes off in London, the BBC is covered in mobile phone and camcorder videos within hours. In the days when photographic equipment was heavy, not very portable, took ages to develop, print and publish we had pictures of UFOs and flying saucers. In these days of instant digital images and worldwide instant communication and broadcast, where are these images?

3: Why would these aliens talk to random strangers out in the sticks? If they are trying to keep their presence under cover, why talk to anyone outside the authorities? If they want to make their presence public why not do so?

4: The US government could not keep a simple sequestering of funds secret and lost a President as a result. Are we really supposed to believe that something so vast as visits from advanced civilisations are being kept quiet?

Yes, there are conspiracies to keep certain people in the money and others out of the game. Conspicuously, however, we know about them. Given what 'they' can't seem to be able to keep a lid on, the vasteness of the conspiracy required to keep alien visits over such a long period quiet renders it highly unlikely, IMO. As I said before, an article today using Adamski as a source is dubious in the extreme, since he was so thoroughly discredited by later discoveries about planets he claims to have had visitors from.

EVen science often struggles against 'what is excepted'.

Do you mean accepted or excepted?

What is accepted in science is so accepted because it tallies extremely well with observation and allows prediction. To throw out or discredit a scientific theory requires one that not only answers a question that the mainstream theory does not (as most 'Einstein was wrong' type people seem to think), but also answers the other questions the mainstream theory does. Newtonian theories about gravity were not thrown out because they couldn't accurately predict the orbital precession of Mercury until another theory came along that not only explained Mercury's behaviour but also fit everything else Newtonian theory explained. If a theory answers 99 questions out of 100 then it will do until one comes along that answers 100 out of 100. It won't be replaced or discarded because someone comes up with an answer to that one unanswered question if that new answer leaves the other 99 unanswered. You wouldn't discard a perfectly functional car with bald tyres for a set of new tyres: you need the perfectly functional car and the new tyres.

Maybe I'm paranoid?

Maybe, but I doubt it. Although we disagree about a lot of stuff you seem to well-balanced an individual to suffer paranoia.

[WhiteCrow]

I see our personal liberties being eroded by the year.

It doesn't take extra-terrestrials to do that, when you can have the same mass hysteria caused by an Asian with a backpack ...

-------------------------------------------

On a serious note though - this kind of thing as someone with a BSc in Astronomy, gets me a bit annoyed.

Within Astronomy theres a debate going on over the origin of life. Did planet Earth form, and life evolved from the elements already here? Or did the planet form, but the origins of the first living being on the planet come instead from an "extra terrestrial" source. In this context we mean "extra terrestrial" to mean some kind of gas cloud rich in organic chemicals, or perhaps from a comet. But articles like this one mean we can't have this conversation without the whole "little green men" thing coming to bite us in the ass ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_...rrestrial_life

[Jason Thompson]

In this context we mean "extra terrestrial" to mean some kind of gas cloud rich in organic chemicals, or perhaps from a comet. But articles like this one mean we can't have this conversation without the whole "little green men" thing coming to bite us in the ass ...

Tell me about it. Related to that is the popular media misconception that the acronym UFO actually stands for Extraterrestrial Space Veicle. Which bit of the word 'unidentified' in the actual definition is unclear?

[Trudi G]

Tell me about it. Related to that is the popular media misconception that the acronym UFO actually stands for Extraterrestrial Space Veicle. Which bit of the word 'unidentified' in the actual definition is unclear?

They call alot of them Unidentified Aerial Phenomena these days, because the term UFO has been hijacked into meaning alien spacecraft for most people...

[Captain Tancredi]

Trouble is, by the very fact of calling something an unidentified flying object, you're identifying it. So semantically speaking at least, UFO's can't exist.

[Carol Baynes]

Trouble is, by the very fact of calling something an unidentified flying object, you're identifying it. So semantically speaking at least, UFO's can't exist.

No...I can see where your coming from, but that's bollocks. By saying it's a 'UFO', you're saying you can't identify it. What are you meant to say? You haven't identified anything.

I've heard all Jason's arguments before, and they are all very rational and persuasive. But part of my argument is that if they do exist and are here, the last thing they would want to do is involve themselves with the violent, spiritually unenlightened natives, who would probably cart them off to the funny farm or detain them for interrogation or worse.

It's all interesting stuff anyway.

We're all floating in space, and we are all a part of the universe around us.

On a similar subject, what does anyone think about abduction stories? Im thinking more specifically about repeated visitations from beings in the night, that can have a fundamanetal effect on the individual, often with physical as well as psychological effects. What's all that about- surely these people can't be imagining it all?

[Ralph]

I think to assume we're alone in the universe is like in centuries gone by assuming the world is flat and scoffing at the very idea of it being round. Similarly the idea that we revolved around the Sun rather than vice versa was scoffed at.

I don't believe for one second we can be the only planet with life in the infinite vastness of space - I just don't think we're as important as that would suggest. As for UFOs not being properly sighted, why not? Our techology is probably so backward to anyone that can travel through space that they probably can avoid our primitive radar etc. Things we probably can't even imagine would probably disguise any entry into out atmosphere. They'll just use one of those Star Trek cloaking devices

I agree with Carol that I would question if they'd want to speak to an aggresive primitive rabble like us anyway where we fight with each other and starve half our population.

Most of the abductions which seem to happen in the States are in my view hoaxes by attention seekers. If there was any clear evidence naturally there would be a government cover up to avoid public panic.

[Carol Baynes]

There are also serious studies into our mysterious origins, which seem to fly in the face of Darwinian evolution. I'm not suggesting extra terrestrial intervention is a fact, but it's one tantilising theory. About 200,000 years ago Homo erectus suddenly transformed into Homo sapiens, with a brain half as big and language and a modern atonamy. How?
It's one of the many things brushed under the carpet, that really needs explaining. There have been some very good books written on the subject (Alan Alford is perhaps the most repected, as he approaches the subject with a rational scientific mind- despite the cotroversy of his theories). There's also no doubt been a lot of garbage written as well.
Either way, it's a mystery that won't go away.

[Jason Thompson]

But part of my argument is that if they do exist and are here, the last thing they would want to do is involve themselves with the violent, spiritually unenlightened natives, who would probably cart them off to the funny farm or detain them for interrogation or worse.

In which case how can there be any stories of personal encounters? Either they are here and keeping themselves away from all contact with us 'spiritually unenlightened' types, in which case we could not know, or else they are here and trying to make contact, in which case why do it in such roundabout ways?

On a similar subject, what does anyone think about abduction stories? Im thinking more specifically about repeated visitations from beings in the night, that can have a fundamanetal effect on the individual, often with physical as well as psychological effects. What's all that about- surely these people can't be imagining it all?

I don't know enough about that to comment.

[Si Hunt]

Related to that is the popular media misconception that the acronym UFO actually stands for Extraterrestrial Space Veicle.

That doesn't even have the right letters. The public must be thick!

Si.

[Dave Lewis]

Perhaps to avoid any future confusion, they should be re-classified as Alien Space Ships, Short Haul Intergalactic Transports or Weird Alien Navigational Kraft.

[Dirk Gently]

I think Dave has a valid point.

[Captain Tancredi]

One of my Christian friends used to believe that alien abduction stories were simply the modern equivalents of the people who in earlier ages used to see demons. This was the mid-1990s when the X-Files and aliens were all the range, so if you're coming from a Christian point of view, you can see how the Devil might use the current bogeyman to create panic and distract people from God.

I'm not sure there's one answer for alien abductions. Some people do seem to have had experiences which defy explanations and physical phenomena which can't be rationalised away. Cattle mutilations are a case in point- what possible reason would anybody have for surgically removing a cow's bottom? Equally there are probably "abductees" who are delusional or suffering from mental or sleep disorders- if somebody who claims to have been abducted by aliens later suffers a nervous breakdown, is it not equally possible that the "abduction experience" was an early symptom of the breakdown?

An awful lot is simply unknowable at the moment- having devoured Timothy Good's books about ten years ago, I'd say that it's equally foolish and blinkered to say that UFOs and aliens definitely do or don't exist. It's equally possible that the apparent experiences of UFO witnesses and abductees are filtering something entirely of this Earth which is stranger than we could possibly imagine. One of the reasons I love reading 'Fortean Times' (and I don't buy it often enough) is reading some of the bits of off-the-wall scholarship and thinking "well, why not?".

Oh, and I was being flippant with my earlier remark.