Have you ever seen a UFO?

[elperromagico]

Poll question: Have you ever seen a UFO?

[Kathy in Cambridge]

1. Yes, I have

[zalinda]

2. Yes, I have seen something I can't explain

Coming out of a restaurant at night, I looked above a building and saw a light moving down and to the right. What was strange about it was that it would move down and then to the right, move down and then to the right, and so on until it went behind the building. It looked like it was walking down stairs. I have absolutely no idea what aircraft could do such a thing.

zalinda

[elperromagico]

3. Down and to the right? You sure you weren't watching the Zapruder film?

[ghostsofgiants]

32. Isn't the zapruder film back and to the left?

I actually have it on my computer, but I'm too damn lazy to watch it right now.

[elperromagico]

34. Back and to the left, back and to the left, back and to the left.

Yes, I think you're right. But I couldn't resist.

[Borgnine]

4. When I was very young...

...I was in my backyard playing during the middle of the day when a black, saucer-shaped disc flew over my head. It was large and clearly spinning, but I could only see the bottom. It stayed above me for several minutes, and I just watched it, transfixed but terrified at the same time. It finally took off at an incredible speed across the horizon.

I'm grateful for having the experience at such an early age, because it opened my mind to possibilites that are scoffed at by the mainstream. Who knows, I might even be a Bush voter today had it not been for that for UFO.

[Lorien]

11. I was about 5 when I saw my first UFO

the whole neighborhood saw it. It happened in the early afternoon around 1970; a long cigar shaped craft that zipped in every direction then just hung in the air, motionless. it terrified our neighborhood. Eventually, the Air Force sent out three F15s to go after it, but it just shot up in the air and disappeared. Nothing on the news about it later that night, of course.

I've seen several since then, but none of the same description. One was a large rectangular craft the size of a football field that hovered over an abandoned department store in a not very nice section of town. My Air Force fiance couldn't identify it, and it too shot up and out of site when a group of young boys approached it.

I also saw three oval lights above my head one night while I was out for a walk around my apartment complex. It was a cloudless evening, and they were able to do maneuvers that no aircraft I've ever seen could do (no, they were not spotlights).The weirdest part was that I felt a tap on my head, which made me look up-otherwise, I probably would not have noticed them. They flew over the horizon at a terrific speed after completely freaking me out!

I don't know what those things are, or what pilots them. My mother had a truly terrifying experience many years ago while driving home from a friend's house in the country one night. As she was coming over a hill, her radio shut off. In her headlights, she could see a tall figure from the back, walking ahead on the side of the road. It was impossibly thin-horrifyingly so. It was dressed in a seamless silver white suit that fit like a skin. As she drove closer, she realized that it was 7'-8' tall, and it's arms and hands were unnaturally long. As she passed it, it turned, and on it's face were nothing more than three flat silver discs. She screamed and drove home as quickly as she could. My father said she was hysterical all night (my mom NEVER loses her cool)! Years later, my dad found a photo in a men's magazine that was taken by a county Sheriff of what looked to be the same thing. He showed it to my mom, and even though eight years had passed, she became as hysterical as she had been that night. She won't discuss UFOs with anyone today.

:scared:

[Borgnine]

14. Interesting.

I'd probably be shaken up too if I were her. That sounds like something right out of The X-Files.

I don't know what these things are either, but they are there. To brush it off and call the people who see them lunatics is irresponsible. Some of them are probably experimental military craft, but then why haven't we seen most of them (the saucers, the cigars, the triangles) outside of the "experimental" phase? If the government had things that could move like these do, they'd be using them in Iraq right now. Yes, I do think it's possible that they're of alien origin, and I don't think the idea is that silly. After all, it doesn't seem like any current governments here have this technology.

[Lorien]

18. Given the way they move

if they're ours, then I wonder why I can't from NY to Paris in a lot less time?

[Radical Activist]

5. A few years ago at night

Something was flying around in the sky in ways that are impossible for any conventional aircraft. Hovering and quickly changing directions. A friend was with me so I know I wasn't imagining things. We weren't far from an Air Force base in a rural area so I always wondered if it was a government thing. :shrug:

What I'm wondering is if there are historical documents of people frequently claiming to have seen UFO's before 1940 or so. Did they have some other way of explaining strange crafts in the sky before, or are massive sightings a purely modern phenomenon?

[Lorien]

6. Go here:

http://www.ufoartwork.com/

they've been around for thousands of years.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. They certainly aren't modern.

There was a rash of sightings of huge cigar-shaped things in the sky in 1897 across America, for example. At a time when the only man-made things up there were balloons.

There were other 19th cent. sightings too, IIRC.

The modern era of "flying saucers" began in 1947 with the Ken Arnold sightings.

[Lorien]

13. Flying saucers

have been around a while:

[MrSlayer]

7. No but I'd like to.

I never see anything cool. No ghosts, no UFOs, nothing.

[Borgnine]

16. Do you live in the country or the city?

There's a reason why UFO witnesses are (unfairly) stereotyped as dimwitted rednecks barking at the moon... these things DO appear out in the country more where its sparcely populated. Drive through the mountains or desert late at night, and you're almost guaranteed to see something sooner or later.

[Lorien]

20. Well, there are some rural hotspots

but every one I've seen was in the city or just outside. Odd.

[xmas74]

22. Chilhowee,MO

There are pics of UFO's hanging out there on some of the UFO sites. I used to live near there. It's about 16 miles away from an air force base.

[enigmatic]

9. Phoenix Lights 1997, the first sighting

Riding home from work by the canals (people who live in Phoenix will know what I'm talking about). A friend saw the second sighting later that night by Estrella Mountains; what a night that was..

[mykpart]

10. No, but yesterday I spotted a BMW!

[Floogeldy]

12. I was but a 12 year old paper boy

This thing that looked like a blue saucer with a ball of red light spinning around it came toward me. It started passing above me silently. When I actually saw it pass over, it was a big, black triangle shaped thing.

After it passed over me, the silence ended and it was like a loud jet blast going off as it went away from me.

I still don't understand it.

[xmas74]

15. I used to see many things when I was young.

I swore that they were UFO's, MOMO (Bigfoot), etc. Now I am pretty sure that it was just bad acid.

On the other hand, there is a posting on a UFO site that shows what looks to be 3 UFO's nearly hovering over my old house (when I still lived there). I recognized the house and the exact directions on the caption. Huuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhh...I wonder. It was rather wierd out there.

[DrWeird]

17. Yes, I once saw a UFO.

Then I investigated it, turns out it was a full moon.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

19. Sure have

It was way back in 1988 and I would have discredited it if not for the fact that the papers the next day said several people had reported it.

[Borgnine]

21. In case anybody is interested.

There's going to be a Peter Jennings special about UFOs tonight (Thursday) at 8 PM EST on ABC. I have no idea why they're deciding to do a special about it now, especially with the dozens of possible Bush scandals they could be doing exposes on, but I'm not going to complain since this subject fascinates me. According to Jennings on The Daily Show, they're actually going to be doing this from an even-handed approach, so it might be worth checking out if you've never seen one and have trouble believing.

[Lorien]

28. Thanks for the heads up!

even though I don't need any convincing, it would be amusing to see what kind of a spin they'll be putting on the topic. ;-)

[Tracyjo]

23. I saw a light in the sky

It looked like a doily. It started out as the size of a star. It grew larger as I watched it. It became as large as maybe the moon when it is full. It was NOT the moon. It was a white light that grew from almost nothing. The edges were spiked or pointed at its fullest. As quickly as it grew in size, it dissipated, turned orange and went "OUT". When I say "out", I mean out into outer space, straight "out". It really looked like it was being "driven". It happened on March 31st, 1998, a week before we sat the clocks back, at 8:50ish pm. I don't know what it was, but I feel special just to have been a witness. My friend at the sheriff's office said that no one else reported anything that night.

[Pooka Fey]

24. Mammoth Lakes, CA ; July 1990

It was such a gorgeous night, and since you're up in the mountains there are no city lights - you can see the Milky Way like it's painted across the sky. That particular night the moon was bright and the Milky Way was perfectly aligned with a waterfall that spills down one of the mountains in the campground. It looked like the stars were spilling from the sky directly into the waterfall. Me and my best friend were mesmerized by the sight.

All of a sudden we noticed what we assumed to be the light from an airplane WAY WAY out in the distance - but this "plane" was flying faster across the sky than any plane I'd ever seen. We were both saying "Look at that!! What the Hell??!!"; then all of a sudden the light just stopped and hovered in place. Airplanes can't do that. The light just dilated in place - like it stretched out and then retreated back to the original shape over and over for a few seconds.

Then the light/UFO just went into Warp 9, like the previous "really freaking fast" speed had been only Warp 3. It just jetted across the sky and out of view in under 2 seconds.

The hair on my arms was standing straight up and I was breathing hard. Me and my friend were scared. We had both just seen something that we couldn't explain, except as a UFO. I'll never forget this, but it's good to write about it and think about it again.

[leftofthedial]

25. never seen anything odd in the sky

And I'm from Roswell NM.

I feel like such a failure.

[xmas74]

26. Come visit me.

I live next to an air force base. We have people make all kinds of claims!

[leftofthedial]

29. I grew up around Air Force bases

saw plenty of stuff in the sky

but not once something that wasn't clearly conventional.

[xmas74]

30. I have never really seen anything (sober)

but I have received many calls at work from farmers stating that they saw something. Some would take pics and I saw a few of the pics on different sites.
We used to get really wierd calls late at night about it.

[Neoma]

27. Have i ever seen any Unidentified flying objects?

well that could be anything!

that fly buzzing around could have been something else!
so its a unidentified flying object. :D

[Califooyah Operative]

31. haha, that third option made me laugh,

this thread is so bad for the tinfoil thing, but i've seen unexplainable objects that moved through the sky, it's actually not as uncommon as it's made to be. The creepy part is the historic documentation of flying objects in artwork as show in this thread.

[leftynyc]

33. Yes, in Sedona, AZ

4 of us in the house saw it. Thought it was a plane at first until it just stopped, hovered and then just sank behind the mountain. We know it wasn't a helocopter as it made no sound.