Common Sense and UFOs
The problem that has always confronted UFO enthusiasts is that the field (ufology as it’s preposterously misnamed) is rife with those who look at (and have looked at) the enigma with belief-blinders on.
For example, night sightings of UFOs invariably indicate the observer has seen green, red, white or yellow, blinking lights, (sometimes blue): a clue that the UFO is something prosaic, like an airplane or dirigible.
Other worldly craft would, in all likelihood, not have the same authenticating beacons established by agencies to protect aircraft in the skies of Earth.
Moreover, what alien culture would have the identical color spectrum as that of Earth? The odds against a similar retinal response between extraterrestrials and Earthlings are phenomenally long.
If anything, a real alien visitation would be of such a strange magnitude that observers would not be able to readily explain it or, perhaps, even visualize it.
And what about so-called alien abductions?
Would an alien presence need to slink into bedrooms to take humans for a medical examination when persons walking, running, driving alone are readily available for the taking, without the fuss of teleportation through bedroom walls?
(The Betty/Barney Hill, Travis Walton, Pascagoula violations establish the template for alien kidnappings, but even those incidents are not without their problems of coherence.)
The sightings of daytime UFOs (flying saucers) are often misinterpretations of unusual aircraft (as we note elsewhere) or mundane phenomena (birds, clouds, wind-blown debris, balloons, meteorological quirks, et cetera).
But what about radar returns that indicate a faster-than-possible Earth aircraft or the immediate abrupt changes (180 degree turns ) that are often reported? Or pilot visualizations that have an air of accuracy about them?
Commons sense leaves in those instances, and a new study paradigm must be invoked.
Yet, the vast majority of UFO fanatics will not, cannot, undertake the intense scrutiny of such reported events as they (the fanatics) are often (usually) locked in debates about sighting minutiae which has little chance of explaining the thing that was picked up by radar or seen by observers (pilots, for instance) who have the acumen to decipher what they saw or measured.
Common sense is elusive in the UFO community; just take a dip into the ramblings at UFO UpDates or read the comments of bloggers, who prefer camaraderie to the pursuit of truth -- this side, or the other side.