Roswell: What happened there?

[Taco John]

Listening to Coast to Coast AM on a late Sunday night, getting some files prepped for a meeting I have tomorrow morning...

Some guy is talking about Roswell, and the supposed events that happen there. It got me to thinking about the various paradigms that we have running through our culture, and just how divergent they all are. Which got me wondering... Just what do people believe about Roswell anyway?

So I thought, what the hell... start a poll...

What do you think? Was Roswell an alien incident, or government experiment gone wild by local imaginations?

[watermock]

The UFAF has allready made up three fake stories.

[Bob's your Information Minister]

I think a government test plane crashed there.

[Kaylore]

I think a government test plane crashed there.
I'm of this mindset. They were probably putting together the SR-71 or something. Personally, I think the government fed the Alien aspect of the whole deal as part of a dis-information campaign.

Area 51 does exist. It is a top-secret airbase where they test new aircraft technology.

[youcandoit1687]

a publicity stunt by local gov and chamber of commerce. similar to waht is going on on these boards these days, desperate topics, lol no offense TJ, cuz theyre all that there is besides AFCCG rants

[watermock]

Wouldn't it be a lot more convenitent to say that it was a Blackbird, which, BTW, didn't exist in 47 yet alone make up 4 stories about it?

First it was a saucer, then it was a wather ballon, then it was a spy balloon, and now It's a blackbird?

Sure, after 60 years they retire a plane that hadn't even been made yet?

1947,,,a Blackbird might of been helpful...we were still building Mustang P-51's.

http://avionhelico.chez.tiscali.fr/photos/F18SR71M.jpg

The conflicing stories tells it's own.

[watermock]

The Lockheed SR-71, unofficially known as the Blackbird and by its crews as the Habu, was an advanced, long-range, Mach 3 strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed from the Lockheed YF-12A and A-12 aircraft by the Lockheed Skunk Works (also responsible for the U-2). It flew from 1964–1998.

I think it's rather far fetch4ed to think a blackhawk crashed when it was 17 years before they even appeared. I will give them 10 years but we didn't have Phantom Jets till 65.

[gunns]

It was aliens. They came to earth to reproduce. My ex was born the next day.

[OrangeShadow]

I'm of this mindset. They were probably putting together the SR-71 or something. Personally, I think the government fed the Alien aspect of the whole deal as part of a dis-information campaign.

Area 51 does exist. It is a top-secret airbase where they test new aircraft technology.

I agree with that to

[Bronco_Beerslug]

I agree with that to
Area 51 tests weapons also and who knows what else the military is "testing" there.


This is probably what happened at Roswell...

---------------------------------------------------------
Roswell

On or around Independence Day, 1947, during a severe thunderstorm near Roswell, New Mexico, an Air Force experiment using high altitude balloons blew apart and fell to the earth. This minor event in the history of reconnaissance turned out to be the Big Bang of UFOlogy. UFO enthusiasts have come to see that 4th of July as the day an alien spaceship crashed on Earth. Some UFOlogists claim that aliens were taken away by the U.S. Air Force and other government coconspirators for an interrogation or an autopsy. Some claim that all our modern technology was learned by analyzing and copying the technology of the aliens.

The actual crash site was on the Foster ranch 75 miles north of Roswell, a small town doing a big business feeding the insatiable appetite of UFO enthusiasts. Roswell now houses two UFO museums and hosts an annual alien festival. Shops cater to this curious tourist trade, much as Inverness caters to the Loch Ness crowd. This seems a bit unfair to Corona, New Mexico, which is actually the closest town to the alleged crash site. Roswell is the nearest military base, however, and that is where the remains of the alien craft and its occupants were allegedly taken. Why the aliens were not taken to a superior medical facility remains a mystery.

William "Mac" Brazel, foreman of the Foster Ranch, along with a 7-year old girl, Dee Proctor, found the most famous debris in modern history. They had never seen anything like it before. Millions now agree: the stuff was strange. Actually, it was pretty mundane stuff, including a piece of reinforcing tape whose flower-like design was taken to be alien hieroglyphics. But the Air Force was not consistent in describing the debris and has suggested that ardent UFOlogists have had a little trouble with their source memory. Perhaps what people are recalling as a single event is actually a mixture of several events that occurred in different years (such as weather balloon and nuclear explosion detection balloon tests, airplane crashes with burned bodies, and dumping of featureless dummies from airplanes). The likelihood that Roswell is a reconstruction involving many events over many years is supported by the fact that Roswell was ignored by UFOlogists until Charles Berlitz and William Moore published a book on the subject in 1980, more than thirty years after the event.

The National Enquirer also brought Roswell to the forefront in 1980 with a story featuring Jesse Marcel, the Army Major who, in 1947 may have been responsible for a press release that claimed our military had possession of parts of a flying disk, the kind that Kenneth Arnold had reported seeing just a couple of weeks earlier. Roswell was one of hundreds of such "sightings" reported shortly after the news media spread the word of Arnold's "flying saucers." The success of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) probably also contributed to the atmosphere that led to the rising of Roswell like the Phoenix from alien ashes to the top of the UFO myth list some three decades after the alleged fact.

UFO buffs trust Berlitz and others with fantastic stories based on 30-year-old memories. That the government made errors and was inconsistent is taken as sufficient evidence that there is a massive conspiracy by the government and mass media. They are trying to conceal the truth from the general public that the aliens have landed. Some even believe that the U.S. government has signed a treaty with the aliens.

Skeptics agree that something crashed near Roswell in 1947, but not an alien craft. Skeptical explanations have varied from weather balloons to secret aircraft to espionage devices. Current conventional wisdom among skeptics is that what was found on the Brazel ranch was part of Project Mogul, a top secret project testing giant, high-flying balloons to detect Soviet nuclear explosions.

cont. (http://tinyurl.com/kb933)

[El Guapo]

My grandpa was stationed out @ the airforce base near roswell and he SWEARS to his story.

I have to tell it the short way cause of work but here you go:

They used monkeys for tests and when they were through w/ a batch of them they would order for them to be terminated. Well my gpa's friend got the assignment one time and decided to play a prank. They shaved the monkeys dipped em in green paint and sent them up in a weather balloon. it crashed and now we have all this controversy today. ;)

[Billy Clyde Puckett]

When I sit out in the sun and drink a twelve pack or so, I see some strange things too.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

When I sit out in the sun and drink a twelve pack or so, I see some strange things too.
I wouldn't be able to see 10 feet in front of me if I did that now but remember trying some of Nature's finest "stuff" years back sitting out in the desert in NM and seeing a lot of "strange" things.

[Kaylore]

I wouldn't be able to see 10 feet in front of me if I did that now but remember trying some of Nature's finest "stuff" years back sitting out in the desert in NM and seeing a lot of "strange" things.
Ahhh... the magic of peyote buttons.:peace:

[dbfan4life]

I grew up in Roswell (moved away in 95) and this was really not a big topic of conversation at any time that I lived there, that was until the summer of '97, the 50th anniversary of the Roswell Incident. I couldn't believe the number of people who came to celebrate that, it was unbelievable. The population of Roswell must've tripled that weekend. There were reports of celebrity sitings all over town. Oprah was there, Geraldo was there, Will Smith was signing autographs for people going to see Independence Day at the theatre. The funny thing is, I lived there most of my life and never once stepped foot inside the UFO museum or even driven out to the crash site and here were all these people who came from hundreds and sometimes thousands miles away. It was mind blowing at the time. Anyway, I'm on the fence about what really happened there. Something happened and it was more that just stupid weather baloon. Something happened there that the government didn't want us to know about and there is proof that there was a cover-up, but a cover-up of what? Who will ever know?

[Dagmar]

I wouldn't be able to see 10 feet in front of me if I did that now but remember trying some of Nature's finest "stuff" years back sitting out in the desert in NM and seeing a lot of "strange" things.
That is an awesome hole in one video slug!

As for Roswell...it's all hooey.

[watermock]

My grandpa was stationed out @ the airforce base near roswell and he SWEARS to his story.

I have to tell it the short way cause of work but here you go:

They used monkeys for tests and when they were through w/ a batch of them they would order for them to be terminated. Well my gpa's friend got the assignment one time and decided to play a prank. They shaved the monkeys dipped em in green paint and sent them up in a weather balloon. it crashed and now we have all this controversy today. ;)

http://membres.lycos.fr/romain/grandpa3.gif

[TheDave]

Hmmmm.... what should i believe?



Weather balloon, plane crash, weapons testing, etc...


-OR-


Aliens successfully traveled 25+ million million miles(no that's not a typo) through the vast reaches of space only to crash in the desert's of New Mexico


Gosh i'm going to have to mull this one over for awhile

[Drunk Monkey]

As a former Roswelian I give my official vote to weather balloons, test airplanes or something else man made. A publicity stunts is also very probable, the town had definitely gotten it's miles out of it. Every year they have a festival that attracts thousands of people. The first year it sold out every hotel room within 100 miles. As a former resident I looked forward to the additional revenue until I realized just who was coming. Freaks!!!! Quacks!!!!! and general Psycho’s. Lock your doors Roswell when the Alien Festival rolls around.

[MrPeepers]

my family is from roswell, i spent summers there as a kid. Like any kid i'm into the UFO thing, so I used to look up newspaper reports at the local library. My grandparents didn't think anything of it and they knew the rancher. Mac Brazel. A few people in town disappeared, but they thought it was a bit silly. Another grandfather was a lt. col at the roswell air field and still says nothing happened at age 87+. So, something fishy happened, noone knows the real truth and im sure it's neither as outrageous as either side claims.

the museum is an new phenomonen, I was looking into when it first appeared on unsolved mysteries, like 7-10 years later the museum opened.

[Taco John]

I'm on board with the theory that something (ie. military test plane) crashed there, and the government wanted to draw attention from what it really was, so they disseminated two completely unbelievable lies, and forced the public to decide between each of them while completely ignoring all other possibilities.

[12th man]

I'm on board with the theory that something (ie. military test plane) crashed there, and the government wanted to draw attention from what it really was, so they disseminated two completely unbelievable lies, and forced the public to decide between each of them while completely ignoring all other possibilities.
I agree. what's more logical here. A government cover up of a new plane for the miliaty, or an Alien from another planet crashing into earth. come on people, don't be so gullable.

[Kaylore]

I agree. what's more logical here. A government cover up of a new plane for the miliaty, or an Alien from another planet crashing into earth. come on people, don't be so gullable. What? You don't think Aliens with advanced technology would come all the way to Earth to cut holes in cows and squish our wheat fields?

[12th man]

What? You don't think Aliens with advanced technology would come all the way to Earth to cut holes in cows and squish our wheat fields?

Hilarious! No!

[Old Dude]

What? You don't think Aliens with advanced technology would come all the way to Earth to cut holes in cows and squish our wheat fields?

Maybe that's part of their mating rituals.

[hades]

I may be going there in a few weeks, I'll snoop around and let ya'll know what I find out.

[Kaylore]

Maybe that's part of their mating rituals.
Now it makes sense. Their own world has run out of mating resources. All the cows are dead and all the wheat is smashed to pieces.

[dbfan4life]

I may be going there in a few weeks, I'll snoop around and let ya'll know what I find out.

There's a new restuarant you need to try while you're there. La Posta right of of Main and 2nd St. I was just there this weekend, best Mexican buffet I've had in a while. Don't bother with the alien thing, you'll leave disappointed! Ha!

[hades]

There's a new restuarant you need to try while you're there. La Posta right of of Main and 2nd St. I was just there this weekend, best Mexican buffet I've had in a while. Don't bother with the alien thing, you'll leave disappointed! Ha!


How big is the town? Any airports nearby? I may be dropping a car off there for some work, then leave it for a week or two and fly back to Dallas.

I'm always down for some Mexican food! Extra jalepeno's please!

[Taco John]

I agree. what's more logical here. A government cover up of a new plane for the miliaty, or an Alien from another planet crashing into earth. come on people, don't be so gullable.



To the credit of the "gullible" people, there is a retired general (Phillip J. Corso) who on his deathbed claimed that the Alien theory was true, and that he was a part of a program to reverse engineer technology and seed it in American industry. I mean, this is a US Military General on his deathbed claiming some fantastic stuff... It's pretty easy to get carried away when Government officials like this are writing books on their deathbeds claiming that they just want to get the true story out.

Look it up... "The Day After Roswell (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/067101756X?v=glance)." He claims to be the man behind the US superiority in integrated circuit chips, fiber optics, lasers and more.

[Spider]

i was just in Roswell a couple of months ago ........ never saw so many empty buildings ....... as for what happened ? dont know

[12th man]

To the credit of the "gullible" people, there is a retired general (Phillip J. Corso) who on his deathbed claimed that the Alien theory was true, and that he was a part of a program to reverse engineer technology and seed it in American industry. I mean, this is a US Military General on his deathbed claiming some fantastic stuff... It's pretty easy to get carried away when Government officials like this are writing books on their deathbeds claiming that they just want to get the true story out.

Look it up... "The Day After Roswell (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/067101756X?v=glance)." He claims to be the man behind the US superiority in integrated circuit chips, fiber optics, lasers and more.
Hmm...Interesting.

I don't know. I just think it's more logical to say it was the military testing a secret plane that didn't want the rest of the world to find out. So they let people run wild with imagination and it came out as aliens and a ufo and such.

[dbfan4life]

How big is the town? Any airports nearby? I may be dropping a car off there for some work, then leave it for a week or two and fly back to Dallas.

I'm always down for some Mexican food! Extra jalepeno's please!

Roswell's a town of about 45000 people. Not too small, I guess. There is an airport in Roswell but it's one of the small ones, few commercial flights if even that. Nearest major airport is Albuquerque. There are a lot of resturants, shouldn't have trouble finding a place to eat. Don't know much about the night life. 2 bars I can think of.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Look it up... "The Day After Roswell (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/067101756X?v=glance)." He claims to be the man behind the US superiority in integrated circuit chips, fiber optics, lasers and more.

Oh yeah, these kind of books need be in classrooms across America!!!!

Corso, a career military intelligence officer, claims to have managed myriad research projects throughout the 1950s connected to recovery of the Roswell craft. Like Hesemann and Mantle, he asserts that the Cold War was a cover to develop "alien technology" that superpowers USA and USSR could not only use against the other but against the threat of extraterrestrial invasion. The most memorable passage in either book, however, is Hesemann and Mantle's suggestion that President Clinton induced the warring parties to make peace in the Bosnian war only by showing them proof of that alien menace. For public libraries convinced that pro-UFO books are needed for balance, the Hesemann and Mantle may be appropriate. The Corso is only for the few special libraries that have made documenting the unconventional a collecting priority.

[hades]

Roswell's a town of about 45000 people. Not too small, I guess. There is an airport in Roswell but it's one of the small ones, few commercial flights if even that. Nearest major airport is Albuquerque. There are a lot of resturants, shouldn't have trouble finding a place to eat. Don't know much about the night life. 2 bars I can think of.

Crikies, that's 200 miles. Guess I can check if Southwest has any flights, or maybe just ship the car if I go that route. Don't think I'd want to stay for a week or longer, dependign on how long the work would take.

Thx!

[broncocalijohn]

I think aliens came by the ton. Two died in a crash landing and the rest fled to KC to interact with the local yahoos. The seemed to fit right in. They married humansand had half breed kids. Now, they are the ancestors of the full blooded aliens that landed in Roswell and currently dress up in Red on certain Sundays in the Fall and winter. They watch bad football and some troll over to the Mane. On other parts of the year, they watch a dismal team called the Royals. Now into the 3rd generation of these alien/human beings they became a little smarter in 5o years but they cant shake the alien ugly out of their bodies.

[Tombstone RJ]

Listening to Coast to Coast AM on a late Sunday night, getting some files prepped for a meeting I have tomorrow morning...

Some guy is talking about Roswell, and the supposed events that happen there. It got me to thinking about the various paradigms that we have running through our culture, and just how divergent they all are. Which got me wondering... Just what do people believe about Roswell anyway?

So I thought, what the hell... start a poll...

What do you think? Was Roswell an alien incident, or government experiment gone wild by local imaginations?

I've read the book "Crash at Corona" and all I can say is something very strange happened at the Corona ranch. What happened, I really don't know, but it was important enough for the military to spend alot of time and money covering something up.

Something happened, something important. But was it aliens, ehh, I don't know. But something happened that got the military all excited...

[TheDave]

Oh yeah, these kind of books need be in classrooms across America!!!!

No crazier than some of those damn ID books... sorry couldn't resist8')

[Billy Clyde Puckett]

I am convinced that the aliens contracted with Sadaam to set up a WMD factory in Iraq and he was able to complete the delivery before the US invaded.

[TheDave]

Funny thing is according to this poll a higher % of people believe in aliens than the % who believed in the us landing on the moon was a conspiracy... again, were doomed.

[broncocalijohn]

If the aliens didnt come and what people saw was a testing of a weather balloon crashing, why, after 60 years, are there still many parts of the report covered up? That technolgy is already old news so why cross it out? Seems there are some important things in the roswell report that can be seen by anybody in public.

[Kaylore]

Funny thing is according to this poll a higher % of people believe in aliens than the % who believed in the us landing on the moon was a conspiracy... again, were doomed.
:~ohyah!: That's pretty ironic right there.

[Atlas]

Listening to Coast to Coast AM on a late Sunday night, getting some files prepped for a meeting I have tomorrow morning...

Some guy is talking about Roswell, and the supposed events that happen there. It got me to thinking about the various paradigms that we have running through our culture, and just how divergent they all are. Which got me wondering... Just what do people believe about Roswell anyway?

So I thought, what the hell... start a poll...

What do you think? Was Roswell an alien incident, or government experiment gone wild by local imaginations?

A soldier was the first one to find the wreckage and he was so amazed by it he brought it to his house to show his wife and son. The son was 12 at the time and said the metal was extremely light and flexible but they couldn't tear it or burn it. He said his Dad was at the house for over an hour before he took it in. He was very confident that the material his Dad found was not of this planet.

[clean]

http://img486.imageshack.us/img486/5205/josechungsfromouter011tu.th.jpg (http://img486.imageshack.us/my.php?image=josechungsfromouter011tu.jpg) http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/6824/josechungsfromouter030xt.th.jpg (http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=josechungsfromouter030xt.jpg)

When a couple claims to have been abducted by aliens, Agents Mulder and Scully try to get at the truth but everyone has a different version of the story, including the 'aliens' themselves.


First Alien: "Jack, what is that thing?" [Lord Kimbo, a large hairy one-eyed alien, that moves like a Ray Harryhausen stop motion character]
Second Alien: "How the hell should I know?"


[Scully compliments Jose Chung's on his books]
Jose Chung: "And here I was thinking you were just some... brainy beauty. Now I find out that you also have... good taste."


Scully: "Just as long as you're attempting to record the truth..."
Jose Chung: "Dear god no! How could I possibly do that?"


Detective Manners: "Are you willing to take a lie detector test to prove you were abducted by creatures from outer space."
Harold: "Yes I am."
Detective Manners: "Well too bad. Cause I don't need no lie detector to tell me the only thing you were abducted by were your rampaging hormones, you punk!"


Detective Manners: "Well, thanks a lot! You really bleeped up this case!"


Scully: "Well, of course he didn't actually say 'bleeped', he said —"
Jose Chung: "I'm familiar with Detective Manners' colourful... phrasiology."


Mulder: "You still going to hold the boy?"
Detective Manners: "Oh, you bet your blankety-blank bleep I am!"


Mulder: "He said it happened before the abduction. Well, so what if they had sex?"
Scully: "So we know that it wasn't an alien that probed her."


A long black car that looks like the batmobile screeches to a halt inside Roky Crickenson's garage and two men in black emerge]
First Man in Black: "No other object has been misidentified as a flying saucer more often than the planet Venus."
Roky Crickenson: "Really?"


Roky Crickenson: "That was when I realised something was weird."
Scully: "At which point?"
Roky Crickenson: "You see, normally if two strangers drive into my garage I tell then to get the hell off the property. But this time I didn't. It was like I was in a trance or something."


Roky Crickenson: "You can't threaten me."
First Man in Black: "I just did."


Scully: "In short, Roky showed signs of what is known as a fantasy-prone personality."
Jose Chung: "Agent Scully, you are so kind-hearted. He's a nut."


Detective Manners: "Hey, I just got a call from some crazy blankety-blank claiming he found a real live dead alien body."

[clean]

Blaine Faulkner: "I hate this town. I hate people. I just want to be taken away to some place where I don't have to worry about... finding a job."


Blaine Faulkner: "...the proper authorities showed up with a couple of men in black. One of them was disguised as a woman, but wasn't pulling it off. Like, her hair was red... but it was a little too red, you know. And the other one, the tall lanky one, his face was so blank and expressionless. He didn't seem human. I think he was a mandroid. The only time he reacted was when he saw the dead alien."


[Mulder makes a strange high pitched whoop]
Detective Manners: "Yeah, that's a bleeping dead alien body if I ever bleeping saw one."


[Scully is performing an autopsy on the alien]
Scully: "There appears to be two layers of epidermis. There's a metal strip that runs just under the top layer down... It's a zipper!"


Jose Chung: "Aren't you nervous telling me all this after receiving all those death threats."
Blaine Faulkner: "Well, hey, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage."


Lieutenant Schaeffer: "You ever flown a flying saucer? Afterwards, sex seems trite."


Mulder: "Have you ever found a metal implant in your body?" [Cook shakes his head] "Have you checked everywhere?"


Jose Chung: "Alex Trebek? The game show host?"
Scully: "Mulder didn't say that it was Alex Trebek. It was just someone that looked incredibly like him."
Jose Chung: "Did he? I mean, you were there."
Scully: "Well, not exactly. I don't have any recollection of this. I was surprised to wake up the next morning to find Mulder asleep in my room."
Jose Chung: "Oh!"


Scully: "But, Mulder... I don't even remember letting you in..."
Mulder: "I told you. You didn't let me in. They were already here."
Scully: [answering phone] "Scully. We'll be right there." [to Mulder] "That was Detective Manners. He said they just found your bleeping UFO."


Mulder: "And when presented in the wrong way, in the wrong context, the incidents and the people involved in them can appear foolish... if not downright psychotic."


Jose Chung: "Agent Mulder, this book will be written. But it can only benefit if you can explain something to me."
Mulder: "What's that?"
Jose Chung: "What really happened to those kids on that night?"
Mulder: "How the hell should I know?"


Jose Chung: "As for her partner... a ticking time bomb of insanity, his quest into the unknown has so warped his psyche one shudders to think how he receives any pleasures from life."


Chrissy Georgio: "Oh, it's you. What do you want?"
Harold: "I just wanted to tell you... I still love you."
Chrissy Georgio: "Love... is that all you men think about?"


http://img486.imageshack.us/img486/1374/josechungsfromouter058vw.th.jpg (http://img486.imageshack.us/my.php?image=josechungsfromouter058vw.jpg) http://img486.imageshack.us/img486/5162/josechungsfromouter074tc.th.jpg (http://img486.imageshack.us/my.php?image=josechungsfromouter074tc.jpg)



http://www.redwolf.com.au/xfiles/season03/3x20.html

http://xfphotos.fredfarm.com/index.htm

[clean]

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[Atlas]

Is there alien life out there? It's almost a certainity.

SoCals link: http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/Extraterrestrial%20life.htm

1) The number of galaxies. An estimated 50 billion galaxies are visible with modern telescopes and the total number in the universe must surely exceed this number by a huge factor, but we will be conservative and simply double it. That's 100,000,000,000 galaxies in the universe.

2) The number of stars in an average galaxy. As many as hundreds of billions in each galaxy.

Lets call it just 100 billion.

That's 100,000,000,000 stars per galaxy.

3)The number of stars in the universe.

So the total number of stars in the universe is roughly 100 billion x 100 billion.

That's 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, 10 thousand, billion, billion. Properly known as 10 sextillion. And that's a very conservative estimate.

4) The number of stars that have planetary systems. The original extra-solar system planet hunting technology dictated that a star needed to be to close to us for a planet to be detected, usually by the stars 'wobble'. Better technology that allows us to measure the dimming of a stars brightness when a planet crosses its disk has now revolutionised planet hunting and new planets are being discovered at an ever increasing rate. So far (August 2003) around 100 have been discovered so we have very little data to work on for this estimate. Even so, most cosmologists believe that planetary formation around a star is quite common place. For the sake of argument let us say it's not and rate it at only one in a million and only one planet in each system, as we want a conservative estimate, not an exaggerated one. That calculation results in:

10,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the universe. Ten million, billion, as a conservative estimate.

5) The number planets capable of supporting life. Let's assume that this is very rare among planets and rate it at only one in a million. Simple division results in:

10,000,000,000 planets in the universe capable of producing life. Ten billion!

[Kaylore]

There is no question in my mind that there is probably an enomous amount of planets with life - even sentient life on them. I just don't believe that life was responsible for Roswell, the removal of a cow penis, or crop circles.

[youcandoit1687]

There is no question in my mind that there is probably an enomous amount of planets with life - even sentient life on them. I just don't believe that life was responsible for Roswell, the removal of a cow penis, or crop circles.

we shall find out tomorrow

[Atlas]

even sentient life on them. I just don't believe that life was responsible for Roswell, the removal of a cow penis, or crop circles.

Speaking of cow mutilations. They have always fascinated me. Hundreds of cows have been found butchard yet there has never been anyone caught and there has never been any vehicle tracks or anything left. Farmers would notice a helicopter flying over their houses at night. Just makes you wonder.

Rural Cow Mutilations Baffle Authorities

By Kate Silver, Las Vegas Weekly. Posted January 23, 2002.

SoCals link:http://www.alternet.org/story/12280/


After the mutilation of 12 to 15 (depending on who you talk to) cows and steer in about seven months, folks in sleepy Pondera County are baffled.


If there's a black market for cow organs, someone in Montana may be rolling in moo-lah. After the mutilation of 12 to 15 (depending on who you talk to) cows and steer in about seven months, folks in sleepy Pondera County are baffled. They're still hoping that National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), a place known for using the scientific method to explore such anomalies as UFOs, cattle mutilations and other controversial topics, can answer who, or what, is behind these strange deaths.

The Mystery

It began in June. A Montana farmer discovered that some kind of unauthorized surgical procedure had been performed on his cow-one that left it dead and lacking blood, organs and hide. By now, it's happened to many more. Whoever or whatever has been mutilating the cattle leaves behind no evidence, not even footprints. It's so mysterious that the townsfolk don't know whether to blame the government, aliens or satanic cults -- but the mutilations are nothing new. They seem to come in spurts every 10 years or so, according to Pondera County Commission Chair Bill Rappold. Only this time seems different, more extensive. Locals say it's the largest wave of bovine butchery since the 1970s, when 62 mutilations occurred in this area of Montana. And they're getting frustrated.

Ruby Bouma knows about this frustration firsthand. She and her husband, Glen, found their 9-month-old steer calf sliced up Nov. 1. Puzzled by its death, they're almost equally confused by the aftermath.

"When an animal dies, a predator, whether it be a coyote, wolf, whatever, they will chew into the animal and make a large enough hole so they can start eating into the flesh," Ruby explains. "... Nothing had eaten on this animal (almost two months after it was killed). "If you lose a calf you just take it back in the pasture and the predators will take care of it. ... In the mutilated ones, these wild animals won't do that. Why? I don't know. How are they dying? I don't know." She's certainly not alone in her confusion.

The Discovery

That's where the National Institute for Discovery Science comes in. Last June, the institute acquired its first sample from one of the mutilated Montana animals. "It interested us because underneath the left jaw, under the bone, was an area of what investigators described as green tissue, in contrast to the remaining tissue, which was the usual pink," says NIDS Deputy Director Colm Kelleher.

The head was shipped to NIDS, where a battery of tests was performed. NIDS also acquired a dead cow from a slaughterhouse to use as a control in the experiment. They allowed the cow to decompose under natural conditions for four days, protected from scavengers. Samples were taken and compared to the mutilated cow, and a surprising difference was found. A substance called oxindole was found in the mutilated cow but not in the control sample. "Oxindole has, at the kinds of concentration we found it in, been used as an experimental sedative," explains Kelleher. "It could have been used to drug the animal prior to or during the mutilation. We haven't nailed that down but that's one of the uses of oxindole."

So they've found a starting point, which comes as small relief to Pondera County folk. Only time will tell whether their discovery is significant; that is, if oxindole is found consistently in other mutilated cattle. And that, of course, depends on the mutilator striking again. The townsfolk know this and, at least for Ruby, the prospect is frightening. "What will be next?" Ruby ponders. "Why haven't these people, or whoever's doing this, why haven't they done horses or sheep? Why haven't they done other kinds of animal? And if it gets to (mutilating) people, then we really need to get it under control. The most scary part is the unknowing. When you don't know any answers, that's what's weird."

[watermock]

I'm not disscounting anything...you might want to look into the UFO's hovering over the Whitehouse.

On the skeptics side, there was a guy not sure who that said the UFO turned on it's interior lights and he saw rotors of a helecopter in a cattle abduction.

I believe it's a dual conspiracy. We have had contact, but it's very convenient to use that for disinformation on several levels. On that level of disinformation you can't lose. Your able to cover black projects and contact in a muddled soup all at the same time. It's perfectly logical actually.

Don't dig too deep, you might not like what you find.

http://ufodawn.com/gallery/displayimage.php?imageid=64

[watermock]

http://www.spartechsoftware.com/dimensions/images/WashingtonLights.jpg

[Drunk Monkey]

Crikies, that's 200 miles. Guess I can check if Southwest has any flights, or maybe just ship the car if I go that route. Don't think I'd want to stay for a week or longer, dependign on how long the work would take.

Thx!


I usually take Southwest to Lubbock and rent a car and drive from there. 160 miles of farm land later and you are in Roswell. The only commercial flight is Mesa Airlines from Abq. That is on a little puddle jumper and they charge an arm and a leg for a 200 mile flight. As for going out in Roswell.... you don't want to. If you must, go to Buds on the north side of town or Farley’s by NMMI.

[orange 4 life]

Is there alien life out there? It's almost a certainity.

SoCals link: http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/Extraterrestrial%20life.htm

1) The number of galaxies. An estimated 50 billion galaxies are visible with modern telescopes and the total number in the universe must surely exceed this number by a huge factor, but we will be conservative and simply double it. That's 100,000,000,000 galaxies in the universe.

2) The number of stars in an average galaxy. As many as hundreds of billions in each galaxy.

Lets call it just 100 billion.

That's 100,000,000,000 stars per galaxy.

3)The number of stars in the universe.

So the total number of stars in the universe is roughly 100 billion x 100 billion.

That's 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, 10 thousand, billion, billion. Properly known as 10 sextillion. And that's a very conservative estimate.

4) The number of stars that have planetary systems. The original extra-solar system planet hunting technology dictated that a star needed to be to close to us for a planet to be detected, usually by the stars 'wobble'. Better technology that allows us to measure the dimming of a stars brightness when a planet crosses its disk has now revolutionised planet hunting and new planets are being discovered at an ever increasing rate. So far (August 2003) around 100 have been discovered so we have very little data to work on for this estimate. Even so, most cosmologists believe that planetary formation around a star is quite common place. For the sake of argument let us say it's not and rate it at only one in a million and only one planet in each system, as we want a conservative estimate, not an exaggerated one. That calculation results in:

10,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the universe. Ten million, billion, as a conservative estimate.

5) The number planets capable of supporting life. Let's assume that this is very rare among planets and rate it at only one in a million. Simple division results in:

10,000,000,000 planets in the universe capable of producing life. Ten billion!

and after that, there are MORE stars.

bottom line is space is ENDLESS, and that means that somewhere out there intelligent life exists.
its just plain common sense.

that said, does that mean that aliens have come here?

of course not.

still, it is certainly plausible that they have.
go ask an 80 or 90 year old what they wouldve thought of someone who suggested 50 years ago the technology we have today. they wouldve locked them up.
heck, when star trek came out the doors opening and closing by themselves was a big deal, and now its just your normal experience at the supermarket.

do i believe roswell was an alien cover up?
no, i dont.

mainly because i dont think aliens intelligent enough to break the speed of light and get here would ALSO be stupid enough to crash when they get here.
im a man of logic, and theres no logic there.

still, considering again that space is ENDLESS, it isnt hard to believe aliens have been here.
if they wanted us to know about it, we'd know about it, so the only logical conclusion is that they either havent ever arrived or that they have but they kept it secret. they didnt have a tire blow out in new mexico.
just my .02

jake

[orange 4 life]

......and in my mind, more importantly than roswell is that incident in arizona.

phoenix maybe?

what was THAT all about, and was ANY kind of an explanation ever given?

[Rock Chalk]

Drake's Equation (best estimate for intelligent life)

N = N* fp ne fl fi fc fL

N* represents the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy
Question: How many stars are in the Milky Way Galaxy?
Answer: Current estimates are 100 billion.

fp is the fraction of stars that have planets around them
Question: What percentage of stars have planetary systems?
Answer: Current estimates range from 20% to 50%.

ne is the number of planets per star that are capable of sustaining life
Question: For each star that does have a planetary system, how many planets are capable of sustaining life?
Answer: Current estimates range from 1 to 5.

fl is the fraction of planets in ne where life evolves
Question: On what percentage of the planets that are capable of sustaining life does life actually evolve?
Answer: Current estimates range from 100% (where life can evolve it will) down to close to 0%.

fi is the fraction of fl where intelligent life evolves
Question: On the planets where life does evolve, what percentage evolves intelligent life?
Answer: Estimates range from 100% (intelligence is such a survival advantage that it will certainly evolve) down to near 0%.

fc is the fraction of fi that communicate
Question: What percentage of intelligent races have the means and the desire to communicate?
Answer: 10% to 20%

fL is fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live
Question: For each civilization that does communicate, for what fraction of the planet's life does the civilization survive?
Answer: This is the toughest of the questions. If we take Earth as an example, the expected lifetime of our Sun and the Earth is roughly 10 billion years. So far we've been communicating with radio waves for less than 100 years. How long will our civilization survive? Will we destroy ourselves in a few years like some predict or will we overcome our problems and survive for millennia? If we were destroyed tomorrow the answer to this question would be 1/100,000,000th. If we survive for 10,000 years the answer will be 1/1,000,000th.

When all of these variables are multiplied together you come up with:
N, the number of communicating civilizations in the galaxy.

So, lets start plugging in some numbers;
N* = 100,000,000,000 (100 billion)
ne = 1 (conservative and while I believe some systems will contain multiple planets that support life, I believe only one planet in any given system will be stable enough for long enough to evolve intelligent life)
fl = 50% (split difference, likely much higher)
fi = 1% (intelligence is not the goal of life, survival is, considered a low number by me)
fc = 10% (lower end for conservative estimates though I believe intelligent life is inherently curious)
fl = Depending on your outlook based on our own life, I am an optimist and suspect we will figure it out and survive at least as long as the dinosaurs did (10 million years) so the number is 1/10,000

Calculate to get about 5,000 planets in our galaxy alone that support intelligent communicating life.

Seems like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, 5000 planets of potentially billions of planets is exceedingly rare.

So, where are they? Fermi posed this question to a group of astrophysicists and without going into too much detail, several scenarios were put forward with potential reason why we have no real evidence for alien life and problems with those scenarios. There are only two scenarios in which there is no logical problem with it.

1) Intelligent life is exceedingly rare, occuring once in every 10 galaxies or so (as per Atlas's calculations though his summation was just based on 'life' itself and not given to intelligent life. I believe 'life' is much much more common than anyone suspects but intelligent life is very rare).

2) Intelligent life tends to destroy itself in a short period of technological development before contacting other neighboring civilizations.

If the answer is 2, we are doomed and it doesn't really matter. If the answer is 1, we may be the only intelligent life forms in this galaxy which means the odds are really good we will never meet aliens. If Atlas' calculations are correct, 10 billion intelligent lifeforms in the entire universe, that translates roughly to 1 intelligent life form in every 10 galaxies (at 100 billion stars per galaxy or, 1 intelligent life form for every trillion stars).

For reference, there are 30 or so galaxies in our galactic cluster called the "Local Group". Of these 30 galaxies, there are 2 large dominant galaxies, the Milky Way and Andromeda which have 100 billion and 200 billion stars respectively. All other galaxies in our local group are either satellite galaxies like the Magellenic Clouds sister galaxies to the Milky Way or small, irregular galaxies composed of about 20-50 million stars. Total stars in the local group equal roughly to about 600 billion stars. If this holds true, then there is only 1 intelligent life form in our Local Group that spans over 15 MILLION LIGHT YEARS. If the Speed of Light is a barrier that matter cannot exceed, then even with a billion years of technological advances, we would not have met any alien lifeforms. Further, if life is that rare, it is highly likely that other intelligent life forms would seek out to find other intelligent life to know that they are not alone (assumption based on human curiosity, large assumption but one that works for us).

Atlas' calculations are flawed however as it has been proven on Earth that wherever life can exist, life will exist. Even in extremely hostilve environments to humans, life exists. In nuclear reactor cooling waters, in the deep recesses of the darkest parts of the ocean where sunlight does not penetrate. In the frozen wastes of the arctic and the dryest deserts of the world, life exists. The ONLY pre-requisite seems to be water and now we do not necessarily believe it HAS To be liquid (though, liquid water increases the liklihood of life exponentially).

Here's something else to ponder.

Let's say we are optimistic and that intelligent life has a lifespan of about 10 million Earth Years. Based on our evolution, it took 600 million years to evolve intelligent life. The galaxy is 10 billion years old. Because of the violent nature of young galaxies, assume that the first two billion years were too hectic for life to retain a foothold. Therefore, 8 billion years of galactic life potential.

Our galactic estimate of 5,000 civilizations is based on the entire life span of the galaxy. If a civilization only lasts 10 million years, and it takes half a billion years to evolve intelligent life from scratch, then the current estimate of 5,000 civilizations in teh galaxy goes down when talking about right now. Some have not yet evolved intelligence, and some have evolved and since gone extinct.

There are so many variables to consider, i have only posted a few of them here for you to peruse. What happened at Roswell could have been aliens, but based on the current knowledge of the galaxy and the universe as a whole and our knowledge on life, odds are astronomically against it.

[broncosteven]

To the credit of the "gullible" people, there is a retired general (Phillip J. Corso) who on his deathbed claimed that the Alien theory was true, and that he was a part of a program to reverse engineer technology and seed it in American industry. I mean, this is a US Military General on his deathbed claiming some fantastic stuff... It's pretty easy to get carried away when Government officials like this are writing books on their deathbeds claiming that they just want to get the true story out.

Look it up... "The Day After Roswell (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/067101756X?v=glance)." He claims to be the man behind the US superiority in integrated circuit chips, fiber optics, lasers and more.

I heard about this guy... funny that he didn't come out with any tech that we didn't already have that has been reverse engineered. Didn't he say the whole NASA space shot was done based on Roswell info? What garbage if that was so we would have been able to take larger payloads & have better computers onboard. No Aliens made it here with Integrated circuit chips & Tin Foil. he is a quack that wanted pub at end of his life.

[watermock]

If the aliens didnt come and what people saw was a testing of a weather balloon crashing, why, after 60 years, are there still many parts of the report covered up? That technolgy is already old news so why cross it out? Seems there are some important things in the roswell report that can be seen by anybody in public.

Your talking about an event 50 years ago that has been changed 4 times and still has blackout on documents supposedly released. It was a UFO crash according to a Colonel, then it was a Weather Balloon, then it was a survellience balloon, then it was a test of midget parachuters that were used in the Normandy invasion. Not 1947.

It's never been properly declassified. The Army has given 4 different stories.

IMO, there is a concentrated disinformation agenda involved here. Let me remind you, Both Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter said they would get to the bottom of it. Ford went as tight as a clam and Carter cried. Reagen spoke about it and was ridiculed, altho I doubt he ever got highly classified documents.

[watermock]

I don't know what to make of this.

http://www.crowdedskies.com/dulce_papers.htm

[Bob's your Information Minister]

I don't know what to make of this.

http://www.crowdedskies.com/dulce_papers.htm

That looks fake to me.