Posted on 01/14/2004 2:39:04 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
Every year, more than a million people report seeing UFOs. Are these people crackpots and attention-seekers? Or is there something real behind their claims?
Hugh Ross, a Christian physicist and astronomer, has studied UFO phenomena for years. His conclusion: The overwhelming majority are explainable, but some are not, and they could be dangerous.
In his book, LIGHTS IN THE SKY AND LITTLE GREEN MEN, Ross writes that, after all the frauds and natural causes have been exposed, researchers "agree that there must be something real at the bottom of some UFO reports."
For one thing, there's physical evidence. In the vicinity of reported UFOs, researchers have found deep soil compressions -- including crushed rock -- and altered soil and rock chemistry. Pilots encountering UFOs report disruptions in radar, radio, and compass operations. Animals become greatly agitated in the presence of UFO phenomena. And some humans who have seen UFOs claim to experience temporary blindness, burns, and internal bleeding.
And yet, Ross writes, UFOs must be nonphysical, because they disobey the laws of physics. For instance, they may be detected by radar but not seen, or they're seen but not detected by radar. They make impossibly sharp turns and sudden stops, disappear and reappear. They melt asphalt and burn grass without fire or flame.
And then there's the fact that ten times as many UFO sightings occur at 3:00 a.m. than at either 6:00 a.m. or 8:00 p.m. They appear in remote areas far more often than in densely populated ones.
Of course, most of these reported phenomena are investigated and proven to be false. But for the remainder that cannot be explained otherwise, Ross has an intriguing theory.
He writes: "Only one kind of being favors the dead of night and lonely roads. Only one is real but nonphysical, animate, powerful, deceptive," and "bent on wreaking psychological and physical harm." It seems apparent, says Ross, that UFOs, if there are such things, "must be associated with the activities of demons."
Other researchers -- including secular scholars -- have come to similar conclusions. They attribute UFO phenomena to demons or to an equivalent cause -- for example, malevolent beings from another dimension. Physicist Jacques Vallee concludes: "The UFO phenomenon represents evidence for other dimensions that simply cannot be understood apart from their psychic and symbolic reality. What we see here is not an alien invasion," Vallee writes. "It is a spiritual system that acts on humans and uses humans."
Astronomer and agnostic J. Allen Hynek says that UFOs cause physical effects "in the same way that a poltergeist can produce very real physical effects." Another agnostic, UFO specialist John Keel, concludes that victims of what he calls "demonomania" suffer the same medical and emotional symptoms as UFO contactees.
The idea that demons are behind UFO phenomena -- and that they sometimes harm the humans who see them -- can be, if Dr. Ross is correct, frightening and can also raise interesting questions: Who among us might be vulnerable to these kinds of attacks?
Read BreakPoint tomorrow for the answer. We'll test Ross's hypothesis and learn why some people encounter UFOs, and others don't.
Yeah, my Dad used to build them. He had this one street legal race car made out of a Caprice, but it looked like something that would be at the 24 hours of Le Mans in '65...called it the Yankee Death Machine after the Cobra choppers in Vietnam...sweet...
Oh wait, that's not what you mean at all, is it?
Ever seen the Kids In The Hall sketch about that? Two aliens are discussing their civilization's decades of missions to Earth to abduct people and do the probes. Some lines I remember:
"Look, we've been doing this for years, and the only real data we've collected is that about 1 out of 10 of the males enjoys it!"
"Maybe you need to trust our Glorious Leader a little more."
"Well maybe you need to realize that our Glorious Leader is a big ASS FREAK!!"
Yes, a friend of mine suggested that. Another theory I find interesting (and there seem to be some rumblings about it already in the New Age community) is that they'll say, "Look, the species took that great spiritual evolutionary leap forward that we told you about, and those hideous judgemental Christians couldn't handle this new world without all those sin hangups, so the backlash just made them all go away!" That will certainly help with their establishment of a new world religion, but it won't help explain why there are a bunch of Orthodox Jews and radical muslims left around...
No?
Maybe you should.
He’s more like the captured alien in Independence Day: a highly developed insect who answers the president’s careful negotiations by saying, simply, “Die.”
Wow. I'll never watch that scene the same way again. Very good analogy, though.
Try this: The next time you face a temptation, remind yourself that you’re cooperating with the malevolent will of a highly developed insect that hates you yet wants to be with you forever. You’ll find your old reliable sins lose a little of their allure.
Never thought of that "he wants to be with you forever" angle before. Yeesh! Much thanks for the link!
Hilarious!
What do you think they are?
Could this explain many ghost sightings? I've heard more than one "I woke up and my dead relative was standing in the room" story.
I remember as a kid I read one UFO account about two guys who were fishing on a section of the Mississippi after their 2nd shift job, at about 2am. A craft showed up, shot them with a paralyzing beam, and the aliens came out and got them. My initial reaction as a kid was to treat it with skepticism but not discount it. Later on, it occured to me that they were probably "fishing" with a 12 pack of Bud.
LOL! Me too!
I'm not disputing you saw something, but that rate of rotation would be really bad for the crew.
Look, I know you're a skeptic, but with all due respect, get a grip! Any person with any religious knowledge and two neurons to rub together will tell you that Satan is happiest whne most people don't believe he exists. So why would his minions be hopping around all ver the place going "Booga-booga" at people? Demons only reveal themselves to people as demons when they can scare them.
That is, people should see demons once in a while if demons are causing the UFOs.
That's like saying, if you haven't seen any super-secret black project Air Force pilots lately, that proves that no UFO sightings are the result of black project jets. Silly.
It is at least as likely that a small core of UFO sightings is unexplained because you can't expect to always be able to gather much data about a past event happening with no prior notice at some odd hour in a remote location and witnessed in some cases by only one person.
I would agree this is why some (perhaps even most) of the 1% are unexplained, but not all. As the author points out, some are unexplained because of effects that can't be attributed to any known flying object or astro/atmospheric feature.
I've never heard a believable explanation from those who believe the circles are alien activity. Communication? Better explanation than most, but why not just send the same symbols over the radio? or communicate by mathematical formulas, etc.? See Carl Sagan's Contact (the novel, NOT the hideous movie) for an example of how this could be done quite simply.
The most likely explanation was in Signs...but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, either.
I noticed that too. In some of Larry Niven's novels there's an anti-matter engine design that melts rock, gives off a mess of rads, but no flame, IIRC.
Ah. Of course.
Seen worse explanations, flocks of them!
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