A few years back while listening to the early morning news, they advised us that the International Space Station would be very visible over Ireland that night.
I didn't know what to expect but as it was a clear day and a cloudless night, I did pop out into the back garden at the appointed time. Those with me joked that we might see the occupants waving out a window at us. Nothing happened for a while so the others went out to the front of the house in case it turned up there.
So I was standing alone with my back to the shed at the top of the garden when the night sky suddenly and briefly flashed and this large streak zoomed silently over my roof and was gone in one second flat. I raced out the front to the others, only to catch it disappearing over the far horizon. The sheer size and speed of it surprised me and I still remember the event.
But the International Space Station is an IFO, or identifiable flying object. What about the unidentifiable ones? When on YouTube I tend to watch documentary style material and when I begin on a theme I continue with it for a few movies. I've watched some UFO stuff recently and wondered if there could be an ounce of truth in any of it. I reasoned that there's six billion plus of us on earth and all anyone has to do anytime is look up. But of course we don't, do we? Most of us live in cities so that even on a clear night the sky is hazy. We are inside a lot at night also and UFO's don't stick out as much during the day.
Most of the UFO videos out there are sensationalist crap and not worth the trouble. But a few seem to be factual accounts of actual sightings and backed up by official data. There was one famous sighting of a UFO landing near a military base in the UK and the security detail who went to the scene actually saw and touched this craft before it lit up and fucked off, so to speak. That one gave me pause for thought. But the crop-circles and alien kidnappings were, I thought, implausible.
Many of the UFO shows on YouTube speculate that the US Government and some others, have known about these craft for years and have actually made contact with the occupants of them. They won't tell us because we'll all freak out, is the thinking. Other schools of thought put down our modern technical advances to contact with more advanced civilizations up there and even the Discovery Channel has run programs on Ancient Aliens, which claim that now extinct civilizations had direct contact with, and influence from, UFO's. The pyramids and the knowledge and ability to build them when they did, is supposed to be circumstantial evidence of it. One program I remember even went so far as to suggest that the first human DNA was brought down on one of these UFOs and left here as an experiment. The implied conclusion is that they are back now to see how it worked out.
Based on the laws of probability, it is highly unlikely we are alone in the Universe. There are probably other forms of life out there so numerous as to suggest the place is teeming with life, (in some forms), but beyond our ability to reach right now. Doubtless, some will be less advanced and some more so, again based on the same probability. The question is though are some of the more advanced lads buzzing about up there checking us out? And if so, then why? What are they after? Are they after anything? Are their noses just at them? Do they have noses? Most importantly of all, will one of them pop down and tell what it's all about before I snuff it?
When it's UFO's, it's all questions in the absence of facts, isn't it? I've given it some intellectual thought, debated it solidly in my mind, listed the pros and cons as I see them and on balance, I could't give a damn about UFO's. But do let know me know if you see one, won't you. I am prepared to be excited by it.