UFO credibility test

There's a lot of hokum out there in YouTubeland, I gather, as for the past few days I've been drawn back into UFOlogy, mainly on the back of those entirely inexplicable incidents in which the pilots of commercial airlines or military jets have described seeing objects in the skies that are (to them) definitely craft, definitely larger and faster than anything known to man - and their sightings have been corroborated by pilots from other planes and by air traffic control.

Watching many purported eyewitness testimonies of UFO sightings on YouTube, the rational mind has to ask itself: "what's more plausible - a) that some attention-seeking old guy fabricated a story that he worked for the CIA in the mid-'50s and saw an alien space craft in Area 51, or b) that creatures from civilisations outside our solar system are whizzing around out atmosphere?" The answer of course is a). Anyone with a bit of background reading and an intent to deceive can attempt to fool people. Some hoaxes have been proved to be more elaborate (much easier in these days of digital handicams and cheap editing software), but I'd still find it more plausible that a given video is a hoax rather than aliens.

But asking the same question of cases where two or more experienced aircrew in two or more aircraft witness something that to their trained and experienced eyes was literally out of this world is more complex. In these cases, cockpit voice recorders have preserved their reactions for posterity - the reaction of air traffic control, the voices of pilots of nearby planes. Is it likely that all four or more professionals have together made up some fake flying saucer story and then persist on sticking to it, despite fear of ridicule and career damage? And these testimonies backed up not by easily editable digital movie footage, but by radar recordings?

UFOlogy is a fine subject for this time of year (much as ghost stories and hobgoblins were in bygone days), it will be time to move on to other things soon. But just to wrap it up for myself - it does appear that there are inexplicable sightings of craft in the skies that are nothing like those built by man, and these have been witnessed by highly credible people with much to lose.

It may be that some can be put down to aerial phenomena - but some can't. The latter will intrigue us for a long time to come. But much of the baggage that accompanies UFOlogy today can simply be jettisoned as being nutty. New World Order, reptilians, reverse-engineered anti-gravity drives, Denver International Airport as the HQ of the World Government - plain nuts. But when pilots report strange objects of huge size, incredible speed and manoeuvrability - that needs to be take seriously. Though the interpretation of this is incredibly difficult and should not be attempted by anyone with a political agenda. Or with a large library of spooky music that they insist on laying down in the soundtrack.

The universe (indeed our own galaxy) is huge beyond comprehension, and our attempts to understand it using physics and cosmological models are still in their infancy. There's much out there that we cannot as yet hope to come close to understanding; which I why I say we should tread warily when it comes to governments coming clean as to what they really do know.

Worth reading some of the reports on the Wikipedia page listing alleged aircraft-UFO incidents.

This time last year:
Junction ready for road to unbuilt sports centre
(one year on - still no sports centre)

This time two years ago:
Park nad Książecem - Vistula escarpment, beautiful autumn

This time five years ago:
Obama wins US presidential election