If you thought UFO pics is a new phenomena ... (1 Viewer)

[Scott Hayes]

http://www.marsearthconnection.com/ancientart.html
I had a friend come back from a trip to France the other day and she spent some time in the art museum there (have no idea how to spell it... the Louve?). Anyway she described all of these paintings from Leonardo DeVinci to people I cant hope to spell:b ,but famous non the less, who had had ufo's incorporated into their paintings. This intrigues me. The idea of a flying saucer is not a new idea and has been around for aparantly thousands of years.
I found this website that deals with this subject. Although I think some of the artwork could be interperted as anything, much of it is intersting. Is the ufo mythology incorporated into our subconscious? As a race are we so fearful of lonliness that we invent visitors from an unknown place in our minds? Or is there an unexplainable event really going on? I would like to hear other peoples opinions on this matter. I am somewhat intrigued. And before everyone starts hollering that I should read The Demon Haunted World , I just got it today in the mail and will start it tonight.
One thing I would like to add, doesnt eyewitness accounts that span thousands of years count for something; not as to what ufo's are but that there is an unexplained phenomena? Perhaps it is mass insanity or sugestion but if that is the case would not that warrant study?
Your thoughts?

 

[Max Leung]

Those pictures are in no way "eyewitness accounts" of UFOs. You have to consider that hallucinogens have been well-known to the ancient world. Also, if you look at pictures of primitive peoples still alive today, they wear head gear, face paintings, piercings, and other paraphenalia that match those renditions rendered on that website exactly!

You also have to consider that those paintings may be no different than fantasy novels, written myths, and other forms of art. Depictions of war, great hunts, natural catastrophes, "spirits" of their prey.

Really, the context of those paintings are completely unknown. Do you think people 1000 years from now will look at pictures of soldiers in bio-suits and think they are men from outer space? Or that a person who decided to get a mohawk hair cut is an alien?

Don't be fooled! You should hop down to the library or bookstore and look at the books depicting these images with the proper context...a discovery by an anthropologist who is adding something to our knowledge of human history. You'll know the true story (as gathered from other evidence at the dig site) of the artifact in question, uncheapened by some UFO fanatic who was not there to discover the artifact himself, who believes that humans are "too stupid" to make compelling art.

Some people cannot accept that even the ancient peoples have the same powers of imagination as we do. Not a bunch of savages as depicted in B-movies and stupid TV shows!

 

[Scott Hayes]

Ok I understand what you are saying,what interested me was th pics of the ufos's not so much the pics of people. How do you account for the pics of the flying saucers that look similar to what is supposedly seen today. There really has been no variation in the descriptions of ufo's from the past to now?

 

[Scott Hayes]

In particularhttp://homepage.ntlworld.com/m.hurley/tebaide1_compressed.jpg
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[RobertR]

Perhaps it is mass insanity or sugestion but if that is the case would not that warrant study?

Why bother, when we have plenty of current day examples we can use (an example is the mass hysteria a few years ago in Europe about "contaminated soft drinks")? Much easier to observe and document.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Thank you, Robert, for saving me some time and keyboard pounding. I cannot improve on what you said.

Meanwhile, I need to log off. Late for my abductees' support-group meeting. ...

 

[RobertR]

You're always welcome, Jack

 

[Scott Hayes]

The way you phrase it begs the question. Interpreting objects in paintings as UFOs, regardless of what they were meant to represent, or the basis for placing them in a painting, hardly means they ARE UFOs, or more precisely, spacecraft of alien origin (since we all know that's what UFO enthusiasts want them to be)

Ok, point taken. But what do you call a disk that appears to be painted in the sky with what appears to be light eminating from the bottom? Note the word appears.

 

[Max Leung]

They look like jellyfish to me.

 

[Scott Hayes]

You guys kill me. I am off to see my alien abducter so I dont have too much time.
I would describe myself as someone who wants to believe but is torn between skepticism and belief. Its one of those things were I cant believe it until I see it. But I have read too many reports and seen too many pictures to totally discount it... yet. Granted, most of what I have read has been biased torwards UFO belief, but perhaps Sagan's book will change my perspective.
Anyway I think there is too much in the universe to discount anything.
I am feeling light and I am beginning to feel paralyzed. I guess it time for more implants. Hope it doesnt hurt this time.

 

[Jack Briggs]

It's the "wants to believe" part of you that causes you to be torn more in the fuzzy crowd's direction. Lose the "belief" part of it all. Subscribe instead to the pragmatic world of rational thinking. Accept evidence. Expunge the need to interpret anomolous paintings produced in a pre-technological era and which could mean anything.

In science, only hard, reproducable evidence is allowed. In the credulous world of "ufology," word-of-mouth is accepted at face value and paraded as "evidence" of visitations from space brothers.

One of the most notorious examples of how all these fuzzy-thought elements can come together to comic effect is the case of so-called "Mr. Ed" Walters in Florida. My ex-wife, back in 1992, insisted that I read this charlatan's book, and that it would "convince me this is for real and we're being visited."

I read it, and I kept laughing. Especially at MUFON director Bruce Macabee's amazing ability to be taken in by so obvious a con artist as "Mr. Ed."

I mean, is this the best the "UFO" crowd can come up with? Do they have even the slightest inkling as to how they look to people who are not so quick to "believe"?

 

[Ike]

What Jack said!
If painters saw them so often back then, and could recreate them, why have we yet to see a genuine videoed evidence of UFO's? I'll believe it when someone can produce a tape that scientists look at and go, "You know, this very well could be alien."
And if they are more evolved than us, then why have their transportation not changed in 300 years?

 

[Marc Colella]

why have we yet to see a genuine videoed evidence of UFO's? I'll believe it when someone can produce a tape that scientists look at and go, "You know, this very well could be alien."

And yet people automatically believe the existence of God - even though there are no photos available.

 

[Ike]

Well, I'm an atheist, but that's getting into off topic (and illegal) discussion. Suffice to say, I don't think people just automatically "believe" in God.
But, it's not quite the same, but I think we probably
shouldn't elaborate.
I'd love someone to post video of some UFO that's been scientifically undisputed. I guess, honestly, it all boils down to I want to believe-I really do-but I have to have it proven to me. So, I'm really interested in pictures that can't be explained and similar, and letting have the skeptics (including myself) look them over. But until then, I think most pictures are A)Hoaxes B)Normal Oddities that we aren't used to seeing C)Mechanical in nature (odd camera effects, something with the lens)
But I got to admit, I love these type threads!
Skeptic Till Proven Wrong

 

[RobertR]

I think photographic evidence is much less useful than it used to be, given the ease with which digital technology can fake it. Actual physical evidence is needed.

 

[Scott Hayes]

This is my own conjecture of what ufo's could be.
First I dont beleive for a minute that we are alone in the universe. It is just to big and wonderous of a universe for me to believe that life could not have evolved elsewhere. On our own planet there is life in every nook and cranny that we have found. There is life on the ocean floor that that lives off of the volcanic emissions of the earth.
Second Our evolution is relativly young compared to the age of the universe. With that being said, and that I also belive that life is elsewere in the universe, why couldnt civilization have evolved far ealier than we did on some other planet. If that has happened who knows what sort of intelligence developed and what sort of technology sprang from that intelligence. Suppose plant X developed a million years before our own. Would we even begin to comprehend them or they us? But what about a civilization a thousand years ahead of us. Put us in that civilzation, what would we do once we spread out to the stars and find a planet with intelligent life that has not yet been able to leave its own system. Would we dive right in and announce our prescence, would we spy and learn secretly about them so as not to harm there development or create some unforseen problem? If we did secretly watch them there would be a chance that at times we might be spotted? Suppose our life span was ten times theres, might we also watch there civilization thru out there development? Couldnt that be happening now here? Again , just throwing out an idea.
Last, although what is being seen is open for conjecture, people, many reputable, have seen strange flying objects. From astronaughts to airline pilots to rednecks making moonshine have all seen flying objects. And there are pictures and video. Yes I am sure some of it has been faked. Yes it could be anything and scientifcly we have to look at the most probable answer. But there are many photos and eyewitness accounts that cant easily be explained.I do not think that pictures or video is evidance of ET only that something was seen. You say that there needs to be hard evidance, and you are correct. On the flip side show me the hard evidance that what people see is halucination, fabrication,the planets, birds, ball lightning, or anything else these things may or may not be. Until you have hard evidance to show that you simply believethat it is any of the above, you do not know, which is no differant than the believer saying a picture proves the existance of ET.
Now all that I have said is conjecture on my part, I do agree that for extroadinary claims there should be extroadinary evidance, I also believe that the absence of evidance is not necasarily evidance of absence. I also do not believe that the ufo question is going to be answered without one landing or crashing. But it is fun to think about and theorize.
Again these are my own personnel ideas. I dont hold with all the MUFON crowd or the abductees or crop circle people. Many of them do believe anything they see or hear without regard to science. I am simply giving you my ideas admitting that they are not based on anything scientific. To be honest I do hope that thy are out there and I hope they do show up one day. I would really like to see the rings of Saturn first hand, I would love to buzz the Orion Nebula and marvel at its wonder and beauty from the bridge of a space ship. I would love to see a binary star sunset on some distant planet. So yes my ideas are based upon wishes and desires and no it isnt scientific, but it is fun

 

[Jack Briggs]

This was mentioned in one of these other flying saucer-related threads: If you really, really know the night sky--and I do, having been involved with amateur astronomy--you never see "UFOs." You do see, however, those things in the sky that people often mistake for flying saucers.

As Arthur C. Clarke once said, he doesn't believe in "UFOs" because he has seen too many of them!

It's also sad that the dedicated scientific inquiries into the possibility of life elsewhere in the Universe must be linked, in the popular culture's collective mind, to this flying saucer nonsense. There's no relation between the two.

The only convincing a rational person needs in regard to ascertaining the veracity of the claims of "ufologists" is simply to read their ridiculous literature--i.e., the Budd Hopkins/Whitley Streiber delusional fantasies; the books that further the "aliens-crashed-near-Roswell" myth; and especially the "contactee" stuff from George Adamski; etc., etc. Then you come away both laughing and frustrated; Whitley Streiber makes a mint off his nonsense, while genuine scientists struggle for funding and grants--and that makes me mad. So, instead of wasting any more of my time reading that stuff, I'll leave it to the likes of Phil Klass, and then read what he has to say about it in the pages of Skeptical Inquirer.

 

[RobertR]

Just to elaborate a bit on what Jack said, Philip Klass of Aviation Week and Space Technology is to UFOs what James Randi is to psychics: a brilliant and energetic debunker who is very good at making people realize how silly this stuff is when looked at with a cool, skeptical, rational mind.

 

[RicP]

I think that there is life elsewhere in the Universe, but that it's much much stupider than us.

 

[Max Leung]

You say that there needs to be hard evidance, and you are correct. On the flip side show me the hard evidance that what people see is halucination, fabrication,the planets, birds, ball lightning, or anything else these things may or may not be.

So are you saying that all evidence, no matter how silly/faked/obvious, is equal?

I can take a picture of a stranger's hamster, and then show this picture to everyone claiming, "This isn't a hamster...it's an alien from the planet Nemesis out to warn us that the end of the world is coming!".

I didn't not get the name of the stranger. I do not know where this stranger lives. In effect, the evidence of my fabrication is not there. All I have is the photo.

Are you now saying that, since there is no evidence that my claim is a fabrication, that this photo could possibly be a legitimate picture of an alien visitor?

A skeptic will claim that it is just a picture of an ordinary hamster, while the believer will take my claim at face value. Are they both right? Are both "opinions" equally valid?