Why Don't Astronomers See UFO's ?

[goodricke1]

I see so many objects moving in the night sky, that if I ever did see a 'real' UFO I would dismiss it as just another earthly craft

[LukeSkywatcher]

I see UFO's all the time. I then read a star chart to identify them.

Hmmm!!!!!!!!!!

Stars dont technically fly.

Carry on, nothing to see here.

(no pun intended)

[Alien 13]

I have seen and photographed many UFO but all could be explained fairly quickly as lens flare artifacts/tumbling satelites/chinese lanterns etc but gone are the days when secret military aircraft could fly at any speed any altitude any where, there are the drones though which could bring about a new surge in sightings in a few years.

The only time i did get stumped was watching an object at dusk fly erratically changing shape and speed I did manage to video it and with a bit of processing could just make out the letters ALD on the side of what seems to have been a carrier bag that was launched as the result of someone burning rubbish.

Alan

[Macavity]

Astronomers are scared of the opprobrium of Brian Cox and fans. [teasing]

I sense people want to "believe in something". Ironically, notably, the above?

[Psychobilly]

That's a valid and well reasoned proposition, Olly and one I simply failed to take into account. If sound, and I see no reason to deny it, it would follow that we must remain forever disappointed that neither of us happen to be Welsh. I was figuring, taking into account the Backwater Hypothesis and the thesis of the Chosen Ones, would it also be reasonable to assume that if flying saucers looked just a little more like naked women, we'd have more photos of them ?

Oi!.... I guess it's because  our  friendly attitude towards "foreigners" must be "universally" known....

[Jase_v2]

I can honestly say that I saw something that cant be explained (by me at least) despite years of trying - It actually got me into astronomy to try and fathom it out. I appreciate Im leaving myself open to ridicule over it but I saw what I saw. A large part of me is comfortable with the notion, that if we are the only life in the galaxy/ universe, "it would be an awful waste of space", but I also think its a bit extreme to think that we know all there is to know about physics ,space, other worlds and the possibilty of travel etc - its not that long ago (certainly in a cosmic sense) that the brighest minds on the planet were flat earthers ! 

As I said - just my opinion

[barkis]

I was walking down new street in the middle of birmingham a couple of years ago when I was snatched by little grey men "examined" and then given a very nice sherry trifle. I woke up several days later in queen Elizabeth psychiatric ward and told I had had a psychotic episode. How do you explain that then

Well I would blame the Trifle, it obviously had summat stronger than Sherry in it to make you

fall asleep for all that time.  .  

[reddoss]

I watched some Youtube videos by so called UFO experts a while ago. The one that made me laugh the most was about 'Morphing' UFOs. Apparently, they first appear as a normal UFO, and then as they get closer they suddenly 'morph' in to an airplane!!!!!!! How incredible, or rather how incredibly self delusional. 

[laser_jock99]

My parents witnessed a strange event in Wales (while I wasn't there...) a bright flash like lightning, which made them look out the window then a bright white light moving away at speed followed by two dimmer red lights. They didn't think much of it till a week later when other reports of strange lights in the area appeared in the newspaper. 

Powys does seem to have more than it's fair share of sightings. Still not seen anything myself (yet) though. 

[bejay1957]

Certainly seen things that seemed to defy my understanding of physics and aero/astronautics; that makes them unidentified to me, not necessarily unidentifiable to those more knowledgeable.

[cotterless45]

I find the whole thing thoroughly confusing, however I do appreciate how special it all is. How special is looking out to M33 and M31 ?

How special is seeing M54, a globular cluster belonging to another galaxy ?

There is enough space junk up there, often whizzing through the ep, without intrusion from UFOs.

I believe there is life on other planets, but it might be some time before basophiles get here.

Personally , I've never seen anything which couldn't be explained by drink, tiredness or imagination.

Nick.

[Cath]

There is enough space junk up there, often whizzing through the ep, without intrusion from UFOs.

Their certainly is. Even just simply going into low Earth orbit is going to be impossible once the cascade starts to happen (a decade maybe).

..

[barkis]

Pretty grim Cath.

Nothing new though, wherever man goes, he leaves his rubbish behind him.

If my wife didn't pick up the discarded plastic bottles, tin cans, and general junk from the local take away and Spar shop,

when she walks our dog early mornings, (I'm still in bed at that time).

We would be knee deep in it inside a week. I've not seen a more untidy generation than than this.

We were in a McDonalds yesterday, a rare event I assure you, but we missed breakfast to get to town for early  shopping.

We had bussed in, as the parking times are not long enough. I had a Bic Mac, and the wife a Cheese one.

About 12 youngsters were occupying the table in front of us.

Their table was left littered when they left, it would have taken no effort to tidy up,  and with the disposal container withing easy reach of where they were seated.

I just wonder if their parents ever taught them anything, or do they think the schools should bear that  responsibility too.

Sorry to deviate a bit, but there is a similarity here.

Ron.

[philhas]

Pretty grim Cath.

Nothing new though, wherever man goes, he leaves his rubbish behind him.

If my wife didn't pick up the discarded plastic bottles, tin cans, and general junk from the local take away and Spar shop,

when she walks our dog early mornings, (I'm still in bed at that time).

We would be knee deep in it inside a week. I've not seen a more untidy generation than than this.

We were in a McDonalds yesterday, a rare event I assure you, but we missed breakfast to get to town for early  shopping.

We had bussed in, as the parking times are not long enough. I had a Bic Mac, and the wife a Cheese one.

About 12 youngsters were occupying the table in front of us.

Their table was left littered when they left, it would have taken no effort to tidy up,  and with the disposal container withing easy reach of where they were seated.

I just wonder if their parents ever taught them anything, or do they think the schools should bear that  responsibility too.

Sorry to deviate a bit, but there is a similarity here.

Ron.

I can forgive youngsters, they don't stand a chance when you see what their parents do!

[Kropster]

 I had a Bic Mac, and the wife a Cheese one.

Now, that IS something to write home about!  

[ollypenrice]

I guess a lot of ball lightning observations helps the UFO groups validity  - its round(ish) , bright light , moves very fast etc.

Especially as until the sixties "scientists" said that ball lightning didn't exist  but were seen by people not normally given to hysteria plus it also has killed people.

Scientists (real ones) never say that something doesn't exist because science doesn't work by proving negatives. It cannot do so. Ball lightning is an interesting case, though. Can you link us to the dismissive scientists? Scientists are perfectly at liberty to say why they doubt that something exists - and that doubt might be extreme - but that something absolutely doesn't exist is not a scientific assertion so far as I can see.

Olly

[Earl]

I have seen a fair few Un Focused Objects

[Stu]

I've never seen anything inexplicable in 15 years of observing. I was once baffled by a triangle of five bright red lights zooming around the night sky. Had me totally puzzled until I got the binos on it and saw that someone was flying a remote control plane at night.... Why, I have no idea! Probably just to fool people like me!

I once positively and adamantly identified a chinese lantern as the ISS. Even my lovely wife knew I was talking rubbish, a fact proven when another one went over..... and another...... DOH!!

Final little story. I was washing the car outside the house about 7 years ago, when a lady in her seventies walked past and smiled at me. Now I am often a grumpy old so and so, so to be friendly I said 'Hello' and asked how she was.

There followed a nice conversation which covered a number of topics about local history. All was going well until she said '....and of course there was the time that huge spaceship came down and hovered over the house. It was a great big silver cylinder and stayed there for ages.'

I gently extricated myself from the conversation after that and vowed never to make the mistake of being friendly to strangers again! ;-)

Stu

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Macavity]

....and of course there was the time that huge spaceship came down and hovered over the house.

It was a great big silver cylinder and stayed there for ages.'

Perhaps she was a Neil Young fan?

Aside: Most of my (majority) pensioner neighbours would make Atilla the Hun

seem like a fun person? lol. Naturally, Astronomy is for "clever clogs's" too...

[Andrew INT]

As a younge teenager in the mid 80's (before I got into astronomy) I saw something that was widely reported as a UFO by 50 or so people.

Living far out in the fenlands, my parents house was not on mains drainage. Next door to us was a large apple orchard. Every couple of months or so I was tasked with going out into the garden in the dark and using an electric pump to empty the cesspit into the orchard (good for the trees, and it didnt flood our lawn).

Anyway, one night whilst doing this evel deed, I saw a very bright flash, close to the horizon, on the other side of the orchards. I didnt hear a sound so I stopped and watched. About a minute later, I saw amother bright white flash through the trees.

My first thought was that I was in trouble for emptying the cesspit into the orchard and that someone had taken a couple of flash photos of me- so I ran indoors!

A couple of days later, the local press was filled with reports of UFO sightings at that exact time. I remember thinking that their descriptions were much more fanciful than what I witnessed (they spoke of a ufo hovering above a house and figures seen at the portholes!)

I know that what I saw felt strange at the time, but in all honesty was 99.99% the result of lighting between clouds (in the fens you can see horizon to horizon in all directions). It amazed me though at just how artistic and flamboyant some of the descriptions were!

In adulthood I joined the army and worked in intelligence. Some of this involved monitoring airspace for hostile aircraft. I am happy to say that nothing that I saw reported could not EASILY be identified or explained.

My personal view on aliens is that I doubt they are common in the universe, and if they were able/willing to come here, they would be so unbelievably advanced that we would be like bacteria to them and, like bacteria, we wouldnt even know that we were being observed.

[Luke]

I think it is because we are astronomers. Here's my thinking: they are coming here and abducting humans to perform operations on them. They spare the astornomers because in a sense, we are fellow travellers of the stars. If it comes to war between us and ET, they will spare the astronomers. So we have nothing to worry about

Being serious, I thought I could see something strange on the Moon once. I was capturing videos at the time. Called the Mrs out to have a look - all looked fine to her Checked out the videos later indoors, what on earth was I thinking, nothing odd at all, just lunar features distorting through our ropey seeing

[starman1969]

Aliens are so ambiguous. I mean, when is the last time you heard of a bunch of farmers being lasered to death?

My out of the ordinary sightings of the last 3 years are........

1) The great Fireball of September 2012 (Watched it from horizon to horizon)

2) Seagulls, Geese & Swans flying at night. That always craps me up!

3) Witnessed NOSS satellites. Most impressive flare/s I've ever seen.

[AndyWB]

I used to kayak with a chap who worked for the RAF in the north of Scotland who, as he put it, "identified clouds as 'friendly'" as his day job. He told me that there were things that appeared to exist on radar, and had unusual performance characteristics - but he didn't feel the need to invoke little green men. Mostly, he was suspicious of our American friends.

And I don't mind being like bacteria to our alien overlords, so long as it's "minute, invisible, bacteria"...

[SniffTheGlove]

One thinks of the mass unidentified sightings like...

Phoenix Lights in Mar 1997

Washington DC Flap in July 1952

Battle of Los Angeles in Freb 1942

Foo Fighters during WWII

Also some credence to flying objects seen in history before the advent of powered flight like Ezekiel 1:16 in the bible or 14th April 1561 when the citizens of Nuremberg saw a battle in the sky

[symesie04]

Foo Fighters during WWII

Wow have the Foo Fighters been going that long?