UFO's - Are They For Real?

Every so often, there will be a news story about a UFO sighting and invariably, various questions go out such as, 'Have you seen them?', and, 'Do you believe in UFO's?', among others.

Well, they certainly are a mystery, and perhaps the real question should be, 'Are any of the UFO's spacecraft from other worlds?'.

I've always been interested in astronomy, science fiction, and the idea of alien beings, whether they, like us, are confined to their home world, or if they are, or have been, coming here. I've also read and have seen documentaries on UFO's and possible alien visitations. And here's what I've found.

The pictures in UFO books are often not clear, and it's possible that some are hoaxes, and some could be real. Many can be duplicated, especially today, with photo shop, and I often find that many of the pictures look as if someone threw a round object, like a hubcap, into the air and skillfully took the picture. Others often are pictures of rounded clouds, often lenticular clouds. Most of these are probably not UFO's, or specifically, alien craft, BUT, considering the technology needed for a journey to another star, it is certainly conceivable that the aliens, if they want to stay hidden, could certainly make their craft look just like a cloud. And one picture that I've seen in a number of UFO books is one taken in October of 1957 or 58, of a very white, 'too bright' cloud over the Sacramento Mountains in New Mexico. According to experts, the 'cloud', is too bright to be a normal cloud. It may not be an alien craft, but it is certainly unusual enough to be noted.

There seem to be two main extreme groups where the subject of UFO's, and alien visitations are concerned. One group believes anything that cannot be instantly explained is automatically an alien visitation. All UFO's, in their eyes, are alien spacecraft without a doubt, and all pictures in UFO books are of genuine alien craft. And the Roswell incident is absolute proof that an alien ship crashed and that the government, at the very least, has possession of both the craft and the alien corpses. Some believe that there may be live aliens in custody as well.

The other group not only doesn't believe that UFO's could be alien visitations, but refuses to believe that anything could be unexplained, and if it is, they don't believe that it could exist. As far as they are concerned, those who even mildly believe that some UFO's could be alien craft, are absolutely crazy.

What do I think? Well, first of all, I do believe that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe and that we could have been visited, and could be visited now, by alien beings. Do I know for sure? No, of course not. So far, all the evidence I've seen, heard of , or read, has been either through others' accounts, pictures that were not clear, and my own sightings, which, while I absolutely know I saw something unusual, I cannot rule out other reasons for them any more than I can rule out the possibility of what I saw as being alien craft. But I definitely do keep an open mind, especially when the universe is so large and we only partially know about our own planet! I would find it incredibly profound if we did indeed find that we were all alone in this vast universe!

Twice, I've seen what I would call bonafide UFO's. One night, in a suburb of Los Angeles, me and my cousin were outside. He said, "Look at that!" I looked up and, being a hazy night, I couldn't see what he was looking at at first. Then I made it out. It looked like a hazy 'V' shaped cloud, moving very slowly southward. It didn't change shape, and it wasn't very prominent. It eventually moved on and disappeared, but not like a cloud would have that changes shape as it does so. Later, I thought that this could have been a flock of birds migrating south, but some things I noticed say that it wasn't so. First, Los Angeles is too far south for most migrating bird routes, and those that do go further, are often out over the ocean. More likely is that areas as far south as Los Angeles are the birds' destination. Also, while the 'V' shape is often depicted in pictures, birds rarely stay in this formation for long. Now living in the Portland, Oregon area, I do see flocks of Canada Geese migrating in the fall and, while the flocks do often form a 'V' shape, they rarely make a 'perfect V', and rarely stay in this formation very long. Also, I did not hear any honking or other bird sounds when I saw the UFO. In Oregon, you often hear the geese before seeing them, even when they are high up.

The other 'true' UFO I saw was while stargazing from Santa Barbara, California. It was a brilliantly clear night. And suddenly my cousin, another cousin, spotted it first and pointed. I looked up and saw it, too. It looked like something twirling, and was luminous, but did not leave a trail, like a meteor would, nor did it look to be on fire, or have glare around it, the way both a meteor or falling space debris from a satellite or rocket would. It went quickly across the sky from northeast to southwest and abruptly disappeared in the constellation of Cygnus, never reaching the horizon. All this in the space of about 3 seconds. It was not a plane or helicopter and made no sound as it moved.

Other times, I've seen things that I thought were UFO's, only to see that they were planes, or other things. Sometimes, I've seen small planes in the air at such angles that their wingspan resembles a flying saucer and, due to cloud conditions, it's easy to see how a person could be mistaken when they think they've seen a flying saucer.

But, if some of the accounts I've read are indeed, true, then these people certainly did see something that cannot be explained, and quite possibly, they did see an alien craft.

And Roswell? I did read a book by Kevin D. Randle, a science fiction author who was also in the Air Force Reserve and is an authority on alien abduction. In the book, "Operation Roswell" , he includes in an 'author's note', in which what he says gives credence to the idea that an alien craft was indeed recovered during the Roswell incident.

As for myself, I do not believe that it was 'just a weather balloon' . I do have two theories. One, that an alien craft did crash there, possibly yielding alien bodies as well as alien technology. or, that there was a crash of an alien craft somewhere else, and Roswell was set up as a diversion. In either case, this would mean that there is an alien craft that did crash here on our world and there are officials who know about it and are keeping it under wraps.

And as for the possibility of old and primitive art and structures, such as petroglyphs, the Nazca Lines, and the pyramids, being evidence of alien visitations? I truly am not sure. I've heard arguments on both sides that sound reasonable, and I truly wish I could have been there when each of these structures were built or art created to know if they were purely human based and engineered, or if they were indeed with alien help or through alien influence.

So, for now, while there is much evidence, it seems to be more circumstantial. But, if there are aliens and they are indeed visiting, I'm sure that someday, we'll have 'it', the evidence that cannot be denied or hidden from the population at large. In the meantime, keep watching the skies.

Please feel free to comment. Thanks for reading!