Ah, yes, UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) myth or real? I’d like to believe I really would. However in this age of quality digital cameras with zoom lenses and camera phones etc. why are we still stuck with so many blobs and fuzzy images that could be almost anything? Also there are then so many fakes it’s difficult to know what to believe. When I googled UFOs it came up with an abundance of images. If even a fraction of them are real why is there still so much scepticism? Perhaps, because despite all these so called sightings there is no confirmed contact. Also, what struck me was that if you look at some of the older images, they look like 1950’s flying saucers, if you get what I mean. But then I also found one purporting to be taken on the moon by Apollo 17. They claim NASA have video footage locked away somewhere. But then this is on a site called ufosightingsdaily.com.
Anyway, in the title I advertise a personal UFO experience and I do have one. We were on a family holiday in the Tarn region of France in August 1998. There was myself, wife, two sons and mother-in-law. We were sitting out on the terrace one warm evening I guess about 9.30pm (it was dark), when a bright light shot across the sky roughly south to north. It was silent, but was certainly moving at speed and we all saw it. I even joked, ‘Oh look it must be a UFO,’ or words to that affect. But then around 30 seconds later two French (I presume) jet fighters screamed low across the sky travelling in the same direction. Whatever it was, they were following / chasing it. The next day there were reports in the news from France and Belgium of other UFO sightings.
So for me it was a UFO by definition, but was it an alien space craft? I don’t know, but then I also don’t know what else it might have been. All this gets me no closer to answering the question in the title. I believe there is life on other planets. The universe and even are our galaxy are so big, with so many stars and potentially inhabitable planets it seems inconceivable for there not to be. Is there other intelligent life? Well again, given what I’ve just said, it seems to be almost arrogant of the human species to believe we are the only intelligent life in the universe. But are they visiting earth? and if so why aren’t there those definitive images. Or, why don’t they make contact? I suppose if their technology is sufficiently advanced that they can cross interstellar distances, then keeping out of sight shouldn’t be a problem. But that raises the question why do we have any images at all? Are they playing with us? Are they like joy riding teenagers, showing off? If they are here at least their intentions seem benign (well so far). Perhaps they’re just watching, waiting for the day when we join them amongst the stars, as is the premise for ‘2001 a Space Odyssey’ (and as I speculate in ‘Ancestral Dreams’). Having looked into this for my blog and having had a personal experience I’m not much further to answering my own question. I guess I’m still a hopeful sceptic.
Let me know your opinion. Or do you have your own UFO experience, if so I’d love to hear it.
Ian Martyn
You know I watched a documentary… on this subject 20 years ago. And I recall one particular video of 2 girls filming a particular large flying saucer at the end of their garden – beyond the trees!
Baring in mind, this was a long time before ‘anyone’ without serious technical knowledge could have created such a host in filming, but what was even perhaps more striking is that one of the girls, went into complete ‘denial’ and although what she was seeing was very clearly a flying saucer, she refused to believe it… treating the whole experience as something to ridicule – she seemed in reality ‘genuinely’ scared!
So bearing in mind ‘all’ these factors, and if nothing else – if it was a hoax, then why have I not seen this clip again in over 20 years; when it was either ‘the’ best or one of the best examples of a sighting I have “ever” seen!
Even if it was just a hoax, then it was such a good example of this… again I cannot fathom as to why, I have not seen it since – when I have seen many others ‘far’ less convincing images.
So your answer…?
Well, you take ‘all’ the above factors, and that this footage has seemingly mysteriously disappeared…
This was ‘definitively’ no blurred image!
Sean, thanks. I must admit I don’t know what to believe. One problem I think is that are so many hoax’s out their, if there are genuine sightings they’re lost in the general ‘noise’.
Seb, this was my original reply – thanks. I must admit I don’t know what to believe. One problem I think is that are so many hoax’s out their, if there are genuine sightings they’re lost in the general ‘noise’.
Sorry repeated self there, and spelt ‘baring’ incorrectly – I ‘think’ the first time…
Hope it makes a point, nevertheless?