UFOs are real

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > UFOs are real

Snowglobe of Doom: Mar 30, 2012; sucks to be right

wilfredmerriweathr posted:

With how many starlink satellites are in orbit these days, this is gonna become more and more frequent. I'm an astronomer and I camp in the desert a lot and it's hella noticeable.

Here in Australia we had a whole bunch of people calling talkback radio this morning after witnessing a perfectly straight line of dozens of lights streaking across the sky, which of course was Starlink: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-13/what-were-these-lights-in-the-sky-eastern-australia/100064630

# ? Apr 13, 2021 06:52

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 20, 2024 04:45

Muk Dumpster: Jun 27, 2020; Text Here

I just solved global warming:
Ozone layer hole makes ice caps melt
So
Make a pipe from ice caps to space through ozone hole
Water freezes instantly in space
Ice falls back down cos heavy
Problem solved

# ? Apr 13, 2021 10:49

Butternubs: Feb 15, 2012

If you think about it, any three lights make a triangle.

# ? Apr 13, 2021 11:15

Xaintrailles: Aug 14, 2015

Muk Dumpster posted:

I just solved global warming:
Ozone layer hole makes ice caps melt
So
Make a pipe from ice caps to space through ozone hole
Water freezes instantly in space
Ice falls back down cos heavy
Problem solved

Just make sure you can turn it off before dumping 1km of snow on everything.

# ? Apr 13, 2021 12:06

Colonel Cancer: Sep 26, 2015; Tune into the fireplace channel, you absolute buffoon

Wait I thought that was the point

# ? Apr 13, 2021 12:20

hemale in pain: Jun 5, 2010

Mulaney Power Move posted:

that was frozen ancient astronaut piss

# ? Apr 13, 2021 12:42

Ratios and Tendency: Apr 23, 2010; MURALI

Butternubs posted:

If you think about it, any three lights make a triangle.

What if they're in a line

# ? Apr 13, 2021 12:44

Snowglobe of Doom: Mar 30, 2012; sucks to be right

Ratios and Tendency posted:

What if they're in a line

That's a side view of a triangle

# ? Apr 13, 2021 13:13

Mulaney Power Move: Dec 30, 2004

i think a good example of ufology at its best was the case of the phoenix lights where you had so many variations of what people say they saw that they decided their were multiple different incidents - more than one ufo that night! - rather than writing it off as subjective interpretation of seeing flares.

# ? Apr 13, 2021 13:20

Snowglobe of Doom: Mar 30, 2012; sucks to be right

Mulaney Power Move posted:

i think a good example of ufology at its best was the case of the phoenix lights where you had so many variations of what people say they saw that they decided their were multiple different incidents - more than one ufo that night! - rather than writing it off as subjective interpretation of seeing flares.

Similarly, there was a UFO incident in Westall Australia in 1966 where several hundred school children and staff witnessed a silvery object descend out of the sky, land not too far away behind some trees, and then 20 minutes later took off vertically. At the time pretty much everyone said that the actual landing was obscured behind the trees but some of the kids ran over to the area shortly after it took off again.
Of course in the intervening years researchers have apparently collected over 400 alleged eyewitness accounts and a lot of them have wildly different details: some claim there were three UFOs, some people claim that they were a kid at the school and they got within a few metres of the landed craft, some say there were flashing lights, some say the craft was making sound, etc etc

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/v...9f19327eb1c23fc
https://www.theage.com.au/national/academic-throws-light-on-40-year-old-ufo-mystery-20051002-ge0z6n.html

The government had been launching high altitude weather balloons at the time to monitor radiation during the Maralinga nuclear tests and they were pretty much the exact size and colour of the UFO that people most often described and one had been launched the previous day
https://www.facebook.com/1057704475...17268096384282/

# ? Apr 13, 2021 14:11

Mooey Cow: Jan 27, 2018; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS; Pillbug

Mulaney Power Move posted:

i think a good example of ufology at its best was the case of the phoenix lights where you had so many variations of what people say they saw that they decided their were multiple different incidents - more than one ufo that night! - rather than writing it off as subjective interpretation of seeing flares.

They'd be wrong to do that as it is now believed the first incident was military aircraft flying in formation, which was secret information at the time.

# ? Apr 13, 2021 14:21

Fried Watermelon: Dec 29, 2008

There was a guy in Falcon Lake, Manitoba who encountered a UFO and got burns on his chest:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/falcon-lake-incident-book-anniversary-1.4121639

They made a cool coin of the incident

Also around that time, the US was doing MKULTRA tests on people in Canada lol

# ? Apr 13, 2021 14:25

Mulaney Power Move: Dec 30, 2004

the rendlesham forest incident is a great example of this. it was a combination of seeing a lighthouse at night and bright stars, and possibly MPs playing another prank in their plymouth volare. then you had the one guy with a notebook who claimed only after the fact that he saw the ship land and walked around it and took notes and that's the main piece of evidence the ufologists focus on now, such that even the most grounded and "acclaimed" ufo documentaries talk up the case. like giving the sketches of space symbols on the ship in to cryptographers or whatever who say it translates to "scout spaceship"

http://www.theironskeptic.com/articles/rendlesham/rendlesham.htm

# ? Apr 13, 2021 14:28

Big Beef City: Aug 15, 2013

That's weird. I had a very vivid dream last night of seeing, at first dozens, and then hundreds of 'stars' moving in the sky. Presuming they were, at first satellites, but eventually it was so many, and moving in such co-ordinated formations that they were actually affecting the light levels on the ground around me the several other people who had gathered to watch them.

...THEN I got up and read all the latest posts in this thread which were all about the 'satellite' version of UFO sightings. Neat.

# ? Apr 13, 2021 14:40

Mulaney Power Move: Dec 30, 2004

Fried Watermelon posted:

There was a guy in Falcon Lake, Manitoba who encountered a UFO and got burns on his chest:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/falcon-lake-incident-book-anniversary-1.4121639

They made a cool coin of the incident

Also around that time, the US was doing MKULTRA tests on people in Canada lol

Got a good write up on that one too:

quote:

Here�s where the first of very many inconsistencies in his story appears. He, and his supporters, state that he walked back to the motel. On the way he tried to solicit help from a policeman, who either a) ignored him and drove straight past, or b)drove past him, turned around, and upon hearing the story, drove off.

I call this inconsistent because the Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman who supposedly �drove by� Michalak produced a detailed report. In his version of events, Michalak flags him down. The officer asks what is wrong, and Michalak states that the officer ought to stay away because he may be radioactive or contagious or something. The officer noted that although he couldn�t smell alcohol on Michalak, he looked rather drunk, with bloodshot eyes. He also refused to answer direct questions coherently. He showed the Mountie his burned hat, but when the officer asked him why his head was not burned, he refused to answer. He also refused to allow the officer to look at his shirt, which the Mountie had noted was burned. Michalak appeared to have, in the words of the police report, �had taken a black substances, possibly wood ashes, and rubbed it on his chest.� At no time did Michalak allow the officer to get close enough to see whether or not he was really burned, and when he was asked questions like �if touching the spaceship was hot enough to melt your glove, why isn�t your hand burned?� he sullenly refused to answer. He was kind enough to make a sketch of the spaceship for the officer, despite the fact that he claims he made one while actually at the lake. Why didn't he just pull that one out and show it to the Mountie? Just another unanswered, unanswerable, question.

The officer offered to give Michalak a ride, which he refused. According to the badly burned man, he then walked to his motel, was afraid that he would expose others to radiation if he went in, and instead hung out in the forest outside for a while. Around 4pm, the pain got so bad that he went in and asked for a doctor, only to hear that the nearest doctor was 45 miles away. Insert scathing comment about Socialized Healthcare here.

So he took a bus back home. But before that, like all good UFO witnesses, he called a newspaper, and asked them for a �ride home, but no publicity.� Once home, he spent a few weeks recovering, eventually getting back his strength an appetite (he claims to have lost roughly 20 pounds in 2 weeks), although he was left with occasional blackouts. The burns on his upper chest and forehead healed quickly, but those on his stomach faded, came back, faded, and came back repeatedly. He was looked at by a bevy of doctors and a few psychologists, who came to the conclusion that he was relatively free of mental defect.

It should be noted here that the RCMP and investigators wanted to see the alien landing site. They took Michalak out into the forest, but he was unable to find the site, which, quite rightly, made the investigators suspicious. Later he contacted them again, claiming that he'd found the site on his own, and recovered his tape measure, some soil samples, and so on. Later in this article, when the question of radiation is raised, bear in mind that all of the soil samples that tested positive for radioactive were gathered by Michalak himself. He would have had ample time to, shall we say, fiddle about with them.

Later on, investigators talked with Michalak, and one of them became, for some unknown reason, totally convinced that the man had suffered a booze-induced hallucination, and perhaps injured himself in some clumsy, probably hilariously slapstick, manner. The UFO enthusiasts instantly leap on this fact like hyenas on a wounded turkey. The official investigators were biased, they say. They had already made up their minds, they say. But here are the simple facts relating to the case: Michalak claimed that not only had he not been drinking on the day of the encounter, but he had not drank any alcohol, at all, all weekend. A quick check with the local bartender confirmed that, the night before the encounter, Michalak had come in and had at least 5 bottles of beer. When returning to the site with investigators, they stopped at a bar and he had quite a few �Presbyterians�, a drink made with Rye Whiskey and a 50/50 ginger ale/water. But, I assure you, he is not to blame: some research performed shortly before I wrote this sentence indicates that Presbyterians are delicious. Anyway, the thing that I don�t understand is why Michalak would so adamantly deny his drinking habits. All he had to say was �I�d had some beer the night before, but that�s not related to this.� But instead, he steadfastly denied it, even in the face of the bartender who�d served him. (Coincidentally, the UFO enthusiast will go on at great length about how the bartender was never shown to truly be a �reliable witness.� He�s making the claim that a guy drank some beer; I don�t need a full background check to believe he might be telling the truth. In fact, compared to the guy claiming he was set on fire by space people, he seems a veritable font of veracity.)

One thing that UFO enthusiasts like to harp on is the fact that several times, Michalak was shown to have slightly higher than normal radiation levels, as though he�d been irradiated by whatever the hot exhaust gas was. What they don�t ever mention is that the investigator eventually determined that his watch had the same level of radiation. Back then, watch faces were painted with a paint containing radium, to make them glow faintly in the dark and be easier to read. So one of two things immediately leaps to mind: the investigator accidentally skewed the results by holding his watch too close to the Geiger counter, or that a suitably clever man could have made himself slightly radioactive through the use of a similar substance. Sure, it�s possible that he was radioactive because of his spaceship encounter, but I ask you: which is more likely? Cunning man concocts strange tale, doofus skews radiation test results, or spacemen travel a gazillion miles through space just to blow-dry a geologist?

Anyway, the story doesn�t end with Michalak�s recovery from illness. Not by a long shot. He brought several teams of investigators there a number of times. On one occasion, Michalak claimed to have found a number of pieces of �strange metal� in a crevasse near the supposed landing site. After analysis, the metal itself was non-radioactive, similar in composition to commercially available sterling silver, and covered in a thin layer of sand. Supposedly, they had been found under a few inches of dirt, and although Michalak had �many more� samples, he provided investigators with only a cursory glance at a few of them.

That in and of itself should be weird enough that it scuttles this whole case as far as believability goes. There�s a guy who has a chance encounter with a spacecraft, months later he returns to the site and easily finds some well-hidden alien artifacts, they turn out to be composed of materials you can buy at a hardware store, and then he won�t let anyone see them, but brags about how many he has and how important they may be? And it turns out the guy is a metalworker, you say? Well golly, surely he wouldn�t know how to work with metals and produce fake samples.

What do we really have when this case is all said and done? A story with at least one major inconsistency (involving the police officer) and one strange inconsistency (in regards to the beer.) We have what the UFO enthusiast would call undeniable scientific proof (the radiation readings) that are highly likely to have been botched. We have an insane story about space-age alien debris left behind at the scene, and the highly eccentric actions of the supposedly reliable witness. The only thing that isn�t instantly explained away are the burns on Mr. Michalak.
And yet, ask yourself: do his burns really prove anything? They prove that he was burned, and nothing more. You don�t need a spaceship piloted by aliens to set clothing on fire. Give me ten minutes and a total lack of adult supervision, and I can burn every stitch of clothing off of your body. No aliens required at all.

And the burns on his stomach? Once again, there�s nothing extraterrestrial about that. The burns on his stomach prove only that he was burned. It proves nothing about the existance of spacemen. Give me a potato masher and a campfire, and I can duplicate what happened to him. I mean, it would help if you got me liquored up or if I had some deeply profound reason to do so, but you get the idea.

So if, as I suspect, this story is a big crock, why did he do it? Well, let�s go through the usual suspects. Did he become famous? Yes, extremely. In fact, he refused a ride home from a police officer, and then went and called a newspaper to ask for a ride home. That doesn�t sound like the actions of a guy that didn�t want to become famous. He went back to the site over and over with teams of investigators, went on talk shows, so on and so forth. He even got to be the subject of an episode of Unsolved Mysteries.

Did he become rich? Not really, but he sure took a good shot at it. He wrote a book, which for some reason was printed in a limited run, in Polish. In later years, he expressed extreme anger at the fact that he didn�t make a lot of money off of the book, in fact, the publisher may have lost money on the deal. But just because he didn�t end up making a profit doesn�t mean that he didn�t make up the story in an attempt to make a profit. It just means he did a lousy job of it.

# ? Apr 13, 2021 14:56

Big Beef City: Aug 15, 2013

That attempt to discredit him sounds EXACTLY like what THEY would put out to make him sound like loon.
If anything I now believe him twice.

# ? Apr 13, 2021 15:06

Colonel Cancer: Sep 26, 2015; Tune into the fireplace channel, you absolute buffoon

Oh look who invited the skeptoids :tinfoil:

# ? Apr 13, 2021 15:50

Mulaney Power Move: Dec 30, 2004

i was googling the zimbabwe thing and i found an article in a health journal discussing it as one out of many examples of "mass hysteria in african schools" although the last thing they point out is that witness testimony remains consistent which wasn't the case with their other examples which were mostly satanic possessions and the like

# ? Apr 13, 2021 17:32

Play: Apr 25, 2006; Strong stroll for a mangy stray

Butternubs posted:

It's easily the most plausible theory so far.

Except for the one where they're aliens here for my sweet rectum, of course

Besides that, I guess it's a promising theory

# ? Apr 13, 2021 17:42

Tetramin: Apr 1, 2006; I'ma buck you up.

I had a dream this weekend where I was in an alien space ship unable to move, laying on a hammock and I�ve had diarrhea ever since so. There�s your proof

# ? Apr 13, 2021 17:59

Bad Purchase: Jun 17, 2019

human diarrhea is ambergris to aliens, that's why they're here harvesting us

# ? Apr 13, 2021 18:10

Dang It Bhabhi!: May 27, 2004; ASK ME ABOUT
BEING
ESCULA GRIND'S
#1 SIMP

Project Camelot tells us Reptilians love our chocolate QED.

# ? Apr 17, 2021 00:42

Dick Bastardly: Aug 22, 2012; Muttley is SKYNET!!!

it dont matter posted:

There's also a video of a triangle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSV0bhKO0nI

Simone Magus posted:

Okay that Triangle is some real rear end poo poo

video removed from youtube :tinfoil:

(and I didn't get to see it :argh:

)

# ? Apr 17, 2021 22:15

toggle: Nov 7, 2005

Mulaney Power Move posted:

i was googling the zimbabwe thing and i found an article in a health journal discussing it as one out of many examples of "mass hysteria in african schools" although the last thing they point out is that witness testimony remains consistent which wasn't the case with their other examples which were mostly satanic possessions and the like

Yeah the zimbabwe thing is cool. Few head scratchers in there. Who fukn knows though

Just a question when you guys get your regular probing, do the aliens put their hands on your shoulders when they do it?

# ? Apr 17, 2021 23:21

Dang It Bhabhi!: May 27, 2004; ASK ME ABOUT
BEING
ESCULA GRIND'S
#1 SIMP

Aliens are known to be generous lovers.

# ? Apr 17, 2021 23:27

Delta-Wye: Sep 29, 2005

such mysterious Unknown Fists in my Oriface

# ? Apr 17, 2021 23:50

Mister Speaker: May 8, 2007; WE WILL CONTROL
ALL THAT YOU SEE
AND HEAR

"We've been coming here for 50 years and performing anal probes, and all that we've learned is that one in ten doesn't really seem to mind."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tZar4wRP40

# ? Apr 18, 2021 01:17

Full Metal Jackass: Jan 22, 2001; Rabid bats are welcome in my home

I want to be impregnated by an alien. I yearn to feel its seed grow inside of me.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 14:24

Mulaney Power Move: Dec 30, 2004

Mister Speaker posted:

"We've been coming here for 50 years and performing anal probes, and all that we've learned is that one in ten doesn't really seem to mind."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tZar4wRP40

dave foley is really into ufos irl

# ? Apr 18, 2021 14:55

Big Beef City: Aug 15, 2013

Full Metal Jackass posted:

I want to be impregnated by an alien. I yearn to feel its seed grow inside of me.

Do you want to practice traumatically breeding with something freakish because if so

# ? Apr 18, 2021 15:21

Icochet: Mar 18, 2008; I have a very small TV. Don't make fun of it! Please don't shame it like that~; Grimey Drawer

Does any of the alien species in Star Trek ever fess up to being the rear end probing one? I bet it's the romulans.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 15:54

The Saucer Hovers: May 16, 2005

Mulaney Power Move posted:

dave foley is really into ufos irl

really i never heard that

# ? Apr 18, 2021 16:46

Big Beef City: Aug 15, 2013

Icochet posted:

Does any of the alien species in Star Trek ever fess up to being the rear end probing one? I bet it's the romulans.

No, but ET's race is cannon in star wars, appearing in the films, so they have visited earth and done poo poo. So maybe them.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 16:50

Colonel Cancer: Sep 26, 2015; Tune into the fireplace channel, you absolute buffoon

That's just javas

# ? Apr 18, 2021 16:52

WEH: Feb 22, 2009

I always got the feeling that the O'hare sighting could've been a huge deal if more than ~12 people saw it. Handwaving the entire thing away as a bunch of people getting confused by a fallstreak hole doesn't make any sense, both because if you live or work anywhere near an airport (and especially one as busy as O'hare) in that kind of climate, you're likely going to have seen one already, and also because people in different locations placed it directly above the same gate.

Whatever the thing was probably did make a fallstreak hole when it left and the FAA just latched onto that fortuitous event as a way to write the whole thing off. Most of the people that saw it worked for United Airlines, which then and probably now actively suppresses employees from reporting UFO sightings, so the whole thing went away.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 18:19

Dang It Bhabhi!: May 27, 2004; ASK ME ABOUT
BEING
ESCULA GRIND'S
#1 SIMP

WEH posted:

I always got the feeling that the O'hare sighting could've been a huge deal if more than ~12 people saw it. Handwaving the entire thing away as a bunch of people getting confused by a fallstreak hole doesn't make any sense, both because if you live or work anywhere near an airport (and especially one as busy as O'hare) in that kind of climate, you're likely going to have seen one already, and also because people in different locations placed it directly above the same gate.

Whatever the thing was probably did make a fallstreak hole when it left and the FAA just latched onto that fortuitous event as a way to write the whole thing off. Most of the people that saw it worked for United Airlines, which then and probably now actively suppresses employees from reporting UFO sightings, so the whole thing went away.

I love this post. The content. The mood. Hell yeah.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 18:46