There was a rather poorly-written diary I ran across earlier that something to do with a report about pilot safety and UFOs. While the diary itself was rather incoherent, the comments below were interesting, and seem to follow a pattern I have noticed whenever discussions about UFOs come up either here or on other websites I frequent.If there is a conventional wisdom it is this: the word "UFO" ellicits ridicule, snark, deep sarcasm, and recycled pictures of guys wearing tinfoil hats.
My reaction is always slightly more reserved, because I happen to have see one. I would like to know from those who tend to join in this cacophony of snark what the proper reaction would be to such a thing.
Back in college I went over to this friend of mine's house to study for a midterm. Her apartment was on on the third floor and her balcony faced the pool. We went out on the balcony so I could smoke when I saw something moving above the apartment building on the other side of the pool. It was a more or less equilateral triangle, was flying perpendicular to the ground, and had three dim lights just inside each tip. The thing itself was dark, just barely less gray than the night sky behind it. It was moving very slowly, and completely silently.
I tapped her on the shoulder and said
"Hey, look at that!"
"What?" She couldn't see it.
"That!" I pointed over the building and moved my finger with it.
"Yeah, I see it! What is that?"
For some reason her seeing it to made it real, and I got chills up and down my spine. We watched it glide by for a minute or so before it turned away from us so that all we could see was the slender edge of its rear. It slowly moved away from us until we could no longer see it.
My question to those who react with disdain and ridicule is simply this: what would you suggest I do with this? I am basically a reasonable guy, but we saw something that night that was frankly unreasonable. It was certainly unidentified. But what we saw that night in Denton, Texas many years ago was unquestionably weird. Was it alien? I don't know. I do not believe it was jet powered; this thing was moving around 30 or 40 miles an hour, far too slow for turbines to operate. And it was not a B-2, although the sizes were approximately the same: the thing we saw was triangular, not the distinctive broken wedge shape of the Spirit. Nor am I aware of any aircraft that can fly perpendicular to the ground for sustained periods.
But regardless of the question of the origin of this thing far too many people, I believe, are willing to rule out non-terrestrial possibilities simply because it is so much easier to be derogatory and dismissive. The fact remains that many thousands of people have seen things that are difficult to conventionally explain. And not all of them are weirdos or nutbags. I am one of them.
So please stop the snark. Yes, it is sometimes appropriate. But brush of the tinfoil hat guy is used to paint thousands of eyewitnesses, completely disregarding their experiences in one fell swoop. I do not claim to know what the truth is, but I do think that it is just possible that something a bit strange is going on.