They're Back (UFOs, that is)

UFOs are in the news again, and I started thinking about all the aspects of this issue. The result (subject to change without notice):

 The argument usually breaks down as follows:

The "pro" side:

1.  They exist, and they are piloted by extraterrestrials.
1. Why are they here?  Possibilities --   
1. To study us
• "Alien abduction" comes under this heading.
2. To prepare to conquer us
• To study and test our defenses and detection abilities.
3. To protect us from our own warlike ways, e.g. by disrupting our warmaking capabilities.  (The Day the Earth Stood Still -- movie)
2. Where are they from?
• The usual answer is, not from our solar system, which opens it up to pretty much anywhere else.
3. How can they maneuver so well at high speeds, and appear/disappear in an instant?
• They have technology (materials and propulsion systems) far superior to ours.
4. How long have they been here?
1. People will point to UFO and alien-like drawings in caves or on ancient documents, and UFO-like objects in sculptures and carvings.
2. They will also point to myths and legends that seem to describe non-human visitors.
3. They will also point to certain archaeological structures that appear to be designed as landing pads for alien spacecraft, or directional markers for them.
5. Why don't they just show themselves (and say "take me to your leader")?
1. If we're the objects of study, they don't want to disrupt the data collection process (mass hysteria, etc.).  (The basic principle is that any sort or level of measurement alters the thing being measured.  So in a sense all measurements are inaccurate to some extent.  The strategy is to make measurements as unobtrusive as possible, i.e. not detected by what is being measured (in the case of living organisms).  (This has always been the problem with anthropology, e.g.  The presence of the data collector can have a major impact on the result.  (Classic example — "Coming of Age in Samoa" by Margaret Mead))
2. If it's about conquest, they prefer to keep it under wraps for now.
3. If it's about protecting us, they also prefer to keep it under wraps (even though many people would be grateful) and only reveal themselves at the right time (presumably, at the last minute before nuclear war breaks out).
2. They exist, and they are piloted by humans.
• What are they?  And why are they there?
1. Advanced weapons (we don't want other countries to know about).
2. Advanced weapons belonging to hostile (or even "friendly") nations that are being tried out to see how we respond.
3. Advanced spying devices that are difficult or impossible for other countries to detect.
4. A means of attacking/influencing our own citizens (with, e.g., microbes, or radiation, or poisons, or electromagnetic waves of some sort) (think "contrails", and experimental biological agent releases which have been documented).
5. To scare us into accepting/demanding totalitarian government
3. They exist, but are manifestations of demonic activity.
• To what purpose?
1. To distract people from religious thought and action (although it could backfire under some conditions).
2. To scare us into accepting/demanding totalitarian government.
4. They exist, but are manifestations of some sort of psychic projection on the part of individuals or the population in general.  (This could also be linked to demonic influence.)  (Another way of putting this is that they are not physical objects but focused collections of brain waves.) (One possible side effect — perhaps intentional -- being to cause hallucinations in "observers".)  

The "con" side:

1. They don't exist, and are the product of science fiction, mass hysteria, wishful thinking, etc.  (Note the "modern" UFO era only dates from the early 1950s, i.e. the same time as the atomic bomb hysteria.) 
2. But what about the "evidence"?
1. The meager amount of video evidence from military aircraft can be attributed to faults in the equipment or a misreading of the images.  (Note that all the news clips on this topic show the same very brief and blurry footage.  It's about as convincing as the "bigfoot" or "Loch Ness monster" footage.)
2. Same applies to ground radar (from civilian installations)
3. Crashed "UFOs", often with "unknown" types of metal
1. If UFOs are so high-tech, why do they ever crash?
2. "Unknown" metals — unknown to whom?  Why can't it be something we or some other country have developed in secret laboratories?
3. The "unknown" may simply be a way of sidetracking any further inquiry into what it is and who developed it.
4. If the "unknown" metals are the only proof that they are UFOs, it's a pretty think argument.
4. "Alien autopsies" — show me credible evidence, not just stuff made up for a side show or Weekly World News
5. "Alien abductions"
1. Show me actual physical evidence that has no medical or other ordinary explanation.
2. The alien abduction stories always seem to come from marginal people who have psychological issues (or just want to be famous).
3. Sometimes used as an excuse for failures or pathologies or "fugue states", i.e. people temporarily disappearing for no known reason.
4. As far as I know, no one has actually witnessed another person being abducted by aliens.  It's always self-reported.
6. "Eyewitness accounts"
1. Notoriously reliable in general
2. OK, they saw something.  How do they know it was a UFO?  (Imagine what people thought the first time they saw a stealth bomber.)
3. Again, imagination — or maybe just faulty vision.  (You can "see" plenty of things that aren't actually "out there" — I've done it plenty of  times because of retina issues.)
3. It's a hoax perpetrated by the government and the military.
1. To distract people from the much more serious problems in the country, or
2. To justify more total surveillance, or
3. To provide "evidence" of certain people being mentally unbalanced so anything else they say won't be believed (or, to provide a justification for incarceration in a mental facility).  (The "tinfoil hat" crowd, etc.) 
4. But if they don't exist, why the apparent "cover-up"?
• UFO stories, and "sightings", have been around since at least the 1950s, and the Air Force has been highly ambivalent about the whole business.  They used to say it was just "swamp gas", and they dismissed anyone who thought otherwise as a lunatic.
• But under pressure from Congress or whoever, they have occasionally undertaken a half-hearted "investigation", with predictably negative results.
• And this cycle continues even to this day.  They are basically being asked to find something that doesn't exist, or to prove a negative, which is logically impossible.
• Another angle is that the Air Force continues to "lose face" because they can neither find UFOs nor prove they don't exist.  So they have become quite weary of having to deal with the issue.  (They might almost wish they were for real, so they could get on with business and turn the matter over to someone else, like the State Department for example!) (or the United Nations)
• So the bottom line is that what is being covered up is not so much UFOs as the Air Force's inability (or unwillingness) to figure out what they are.  
• But like all real or apparent cover-ups, it backfires in the sense that people feel that if the government is lying to them about this, it's also lying to them about pretty much everything else.
5. They are not impossible in theory, but the chances of any extraterrestrial beings being willing and able to travel across space to Earth are infinitesimal for many reasons:
1. The distances involved (4.25 light years minimum).
2. The technology that would be required (materials and power sources).
3. The highly speculative "loopholes" like warp drive, worm holes, etc. are, again, more like sci-fi than any established science or technology. 
4. The motivation — even if they had the technology, why bother? (but see "study", above)
5. And besides, what are the odds of intelligent extraterrestrial beings existing at all?
1. Not mentioned in the Bible (not necessary a game-ender; China isn't mentioned in the Bible either).  
2. If life on Earth is only the result of random mutation and natural selection (Darwin), and took a very long time, wouldn't that be true of any other planet as well?
3. On the other hand, if we exist by way of Intelligent Design, wouldn't some other beings have to exist that way as well?  (Some will say sure, and they would have their own salvation history, etc.)  (see Perelandra by C. S. Lewis)
4. (I suspect that most UFO buffs are also Darwinians, and vice versa.  If life on Earth can come randomly out of nothing, then why not aliens?)
5. In any case, assuming the laws of physics are the same everywhere, how about the "laws" of biology, i.e. what is or is not possible under any circumstances?  The people who claim to have discovered planets that "might be capable of supporting life" seem to think so.
6. But simply being "capable" doesn't mean they contain life forms.  (Our own solar system seems pretty inhospitable to life outside of Earth.  And in many ways we are ideally situated, i.e. the position of the Sun in the galaxy.  So that would seem to narrow the potential for supporting life quite a bit if we're talking about other systems and other galaxies.)  
7. Even if there were highly intelligent beings elsewhere, they might be physically incapable of producing or using the required technology.  (Think about alien dolphins.  No opposable thumbs, for one thing.)

So... that's what I've come up with, at least at this point.  If you see flaws or gaps in any of this let me know (I may put it on Facebook and/or my blog eventually). 

See also -- The Golem: UFOs Are Back, Ho Hum (May 30, 2021)

And -- The Golem: Jonesin' for Aliens (July 25, 2015) 

Yes, I've been thinking about this issue for a long time!  😄