I'm willing to believe it's a big galaxy and we have NFI what's going on out there.
But UFO mythology seems very human-scale and not so alien at all.
Do you have any thoughts on some outliers as far as mythology goes?
Still lots of people-sized interactions.
I also wonder how many "prophets" in religion were actually suffering from paranoid schizophrenia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_health_of_Jesus
And if you criticized this ridiculous mythology, you were persecuted and shunned.
But again, I think we see UFOs on earth more than in space because they're sadly not alien.
see my previous rant:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33580896
I think that maybe I get really worked up about this because I am still pissed off that Santa Claus wasn't real, or at least that I once believed he was. I am not being facetious.
It was the beginning of my journey into fact-based reasoning, naturalism, etc. I distinctively remember thinking: I will never believe in magic again!
I started asking too many questions at catholic Sunday school, and the Sunday school teacher and I decided it was best that we part ways.
I am over 40 now, but this is such a strong and important memory. I am still a little pissed off about it. This is hilarious, and maybe a bit profound.
On the other hand there is no harm in stories. I also do not want my kids to believe something just because I believe it. They should think for themselves and to do otherwise it is dishonest.
I do agree it is sometimes odd. I found myself trying to explain to a bewildered Sikh guy on Twitter why British society gets upset when people tell kids that Santa Claus is not real but is fine with people telling kids that Jesus is not real.
It really is a dominance hierarchy there, something we expect from animals. People are supposed to be better than that.
Strangely my brother was far, far older when my mother and I had to convince him that Santa was not actually real. She was afraid that kids at school would make fun of him if we didn’t pop his bubble first. I’m not sure what to make of that difference in belief between my brother and I.
I would say Descartes is a better parallel. In fact it is just a recasting of his ideas.
It is not science, but it is perfectly respectable philosophy.
Did the Greeks believe their myths that literally? It is very hard to know how ancient people's interpreted stories like that unless you have an in-depth knowledge of the culture. I do not, but its a question worth asking - particularly about a culture that produced so many naturalistic explanations for things.
Even if you are right and they did believe it literally it is still the opposite of the simulation theory. It is accepting the first explanation that comes along, without applying doubt, whereas simulation theory is based on extensive doubt of even your immediate senses - exactly the same as Descarte's line of thought.
As a husband of a Sami woman , I wonder when my kids will make the connection that the elves look oddly like the people from the old country .
The non-organised ones though, I think make people feel good for themselves by either making them feel important(advanced civilisation came across the universe for me) or reassured (it's going to be alright, the universe works as expected - no funny business)
I know for a fact that it's real. I spent about a year outside in Colorado, and saw several objects beyond explanation. Most are small and hard to see unless you know to look in the darkness of the sky between the stars. A couple put the fear of God into me - so big that they were the size of my two outstretched hands against the sky. Spheres cloaked against clouds in the night sky. Incomprehensibly large Y-shaped craft studded with what look like stars. Military-looking craft silently soaring directly above.
Who knows if they're alien or manmade.. but whether you believe it or not, they're in the sky every night.
I always found a much more plausible explanation.
For 15 years, I lived near a NOAA station which launched balloons, but I didn't know that at first. They launch one right at sunset, every day. When it hits the sun at 1000 feet, it looks pretty darn crazy! Sometimes there were shadows from low clouds blocking the sunset, and the balloon would only get lit up at >10,000 feet, and it would "jump" in different directions due to high altitude wind sheers. I was very disappointed when I learned that truth.
And while I'll concede that there are bizarre phenomenon of weather and lighting that can occur (google "crown flash"), the "Y" ship I saw was 5 full moons in width and absolutely, assuredly there.
On a side note, these objects also have the ability to "come out of" and "return to" the night sky. It's as if a spotlight were pointed at one area of the sky, and the craft unintentionally crossed the path. They come from nothing, and they return to nothing, within about 15 seconds. It's hard to explain.
Anyways, nothing personal if we don't agree on the matter. I know HN is based on hard evidence and logic, I can't provide either. But it's good to keep an open mind and keep looking for answers.
Although it is quite a coincidence that the spinning hub cap ufo sightings seem to be much more common during time periods when things like the avrocar were being tested.
until demonstrated otherwise, it's indistinguishable from magic or religion.
If you study accounts of alien encounters and abduction, none of the technology abductees report seems extremely advanced, much less alien. Recognizable computers with buttons and dials. Levers. The aliens never bother to offer any equations or technical diagrams to prove their technology. In the whole centuries-long span of avowed alien encounters, no one has ever come away with anything we didn't already know. Of course, one could say the same thing about prophecies and Nostradamus. Encounters with angels, or demon summoning. Always just a hall of mirrors, always maddeningly subjective, never anything to hang one's hat on.
Even in the very first recorded modern abduction scenario, Betty and Barney Hill, the aliens gave Betty a book to take with her. Evidence! Oh, but later another alien just look it back. Womp womp. Oh but there's a star map. Oh wait, it turns out it doesn't stand up to actual scrutiny. It's just dots and circles on a piece of paper, and so simple one wonders why an advanced civilization would even find it useful.
And here we are in 2024 being told about city-sized craft and black pyramids and "non human biologics" and still not a damn bit of proof.
And even with the weird outliers like the Falcon Lake incident or the Phoenix lights or Shag Harbor, where there is evidence of something weird or multiple eyewitnesses (not that that necessarily means anything,) things still don't make sense. Tell me how the Falcon Lake UFO makes sense. The witness looks like he pressed a waffle-iron against his chest because the UFO (allegedly) hit him with its weird grid of exhaust ports before taking off. The technology being described is both advanced and ridiculously quaint, as it so often is.
The thing reported by Japan airlines 1628 - a weird spinning cylinder covered in flaming tubes and random lights. Obviously not Venus unless the pilot was deranged (which can't be taken off the table,) but if not, then what? You'd be surprised just how many UFOs seem to incorporate flames and rockets and that vanish in bursts of sulfur and flame as if they were demons returning to Hell. Almost as if they draw from the same subconscious archetypes.
None of it makes any sense if taken at face value, and so much of it is obviously folklore, as it follows the structure of folklore.
Ever find it strange how many abduction stories happen in people's bedrooms while they're lying down? It's because it's a hypnagogic hallucination during sleep paralysis.
Alternatively, they don't remember the abduction but recovered the memory under hypnosis. It's almost certainly the case that these were false memories.
A third options is that they are just legitimately insane. Schizophrenia does exist.
Imagine we have another small population of moderately more technologically advanced hominids right here on Earth. Say they want to fool us and make us think they are ET. Imagine they have technology we we have, like VR, drugs, and some we don’t like novel high energy hydroelectrodynamic atmospheric propulsion.
Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and if you experienced it, you would probably find yourself hallucinating details like the ones you mentioned to make it fit into some kind of coherent picture based on the technology and even physics you know.