Few things are more gratifying to the creatively competitive than hoodwinking one’s fellow humans. Coupling a desire for fame with a mischievous streak can spell great entertainment for one person, and vast cultural adaptation for the rest of us.
Whenever a hoax is proven to be a hoax, not everyone listens. Some believers remain believers for the rest of their lives, no matter how unlikely their claims. The indellible cultural watermark created by hoaxing is exemplified in the ten most famous UFO hoaxes of the last few decades.
Shermer, the editor of Skeptic magazine, released a short video last year detailing his investigation of how easy it is to fake UFO photos. He had children ‘make’ UFOs using household materials, glue, and silver paint, then had the children photograph their creations hanging from fishing line against a backdrop of gray sky.
The pictures didn’t look tampered with to a professional photography analyst – he couldn’t see the fishing line, and the images were not smudged.
When Shermer showed the photos to the public at a sidewalk booth, some were skeptical, and some believed. When he showed them that the pictures were hoaxed, almost everyone seemed disappointed at the fact, and many claimed determinedly and defiantly to believe in UFOs nonetheless, as though accepting evidence would show personal weakness.
In the nineteen fifties and sixties came the American cultural trend not only of flying saucer sightings, but of reported meet-and-greets with their occupants. The mass hoax spread across the nation as people grappled for a stint in the spotlight. Some would dress up strangely, posing for photographs or gently harassing acquaintances. At least one man (named R. E. Harrison II), took photographs of an image on a television screen, claiming it to be an alien at the door!
A more scandalous, and gruesome, example of alien body hoaxery can be found in Ray Santilli’s black-and-white Alien Autopsy footage, in which a creepy-looking, hairless humanoid, with large eyes and a large head, is shown on a table, partially decomposed. The footage was released in the nineties, and received a great deal of attention. Santilli disappointed believers in 2006 by admitting the footage to be fake. At least he tried to let us all down easy – he claimed the footage not to be totally fake, exactly, but a reconstruction of an alien autopsy that did take place. Either way, the depicted creature wasn’t a real alien, and since Santilli didn’t admit this upon release, the footage can be considered a hoax.
The most famous of these papers are The National Enquirer, The Globe, and the craziest of all: the Weekly World News. These magazines have hoaxed more hoaxes than any hoaxer should hope to hoax, and the redundancy is fully intended to help this point sink in. Fortunately for the levelheaded public, hardly anyone is roped in by scandals titled like these: “Alien Bible Translated,” “Russians Shoot Down UFO,” “Two-Ton Alien Hairball Found in Australia,” “Aliens stole my face,” “UFO Sparks Killer Forest Fire,” and “Japanese Woman to Wed Space Alien.”
Have aliens been using the moon as a garbage dump? Are they warring with a clan of bigfoots (bigfeet)? How exactly can exorcism affect UFOs? Who the heck is P’Lodd, and why is he fraternizing with the Clintons? Doubtless someone, somewhere, has been tricked into believing at least some of this crazy stuff. Thus, these tall-tale-telling-tabloids are officially hoaxers. Even if most of those who purchase tabloids do it for entertainment value alone, the magazines themselves stand by the alleged truth of their stories.
For Halloween in 1938, Orson Welles directed a radio play inspired by H. G. Wells’s ‘War of the Worlds,’ the classic story of violent alien invasion. The night it aired over the CBS radio network is one that many never forgot. It was an amazing performance – so amazing, in fact, that people took to the streets, fleeing their homes for their lives. The air of tension created by the second world war gets only some of the credit for the uproar, in which nearly two million people were convinced that ‘War of the Worlds’ was a news broadcast, rather than a work of fiction.
Although this example of human gullibility almost doesn’t count as a hoax – after all, the station did warn repeatedly that the story was fictional, it’s just that people missed it while channel-surfing – the sheer immense number of fooled and panicked people makes its inclusion here necessary.
What can be more hoaxy than a cult? Cult leaders are known to be more charismatic than the average fellow, convincing followers to believe (and do) the extraordinary for no real good reason. Such an ability was demonstrated by Heaven’s Gate’s leader, the white-haired and eccentric-looking Marshall Applewhite, and his wife, Bonnie Nettles.
Known by followers as ‘Ti and Do,’ the pair convinced thirty-eight people to commit suicide simultaneously, so that their souls could hitch a ride in the an alien spaceship coasting behind the Hale Bopp comet as it came into Earth’s view. Needless to say, the comet-following UFO never existed – or at least, was never actually observed.
With the advent of easily accessible, high-quality 3D-rendering computer software, the general public has taken UFO fakery to a new level. UFO sightings, with convincingly detailed video evidence, have appeared to explode through Britain, the United States, and especially Haiti. The Haiti UFO footage, popular on youtube and said to have been filmed in August of 2007, depicts several close-up views of mechanized, lit saucers. A woman gasps as the crafts fly directly overhead and then into the distance between two palm trees.
It is upon closer inspection of the palm trees that the video is proven likely to be a hoax: every palm tree in the video is exactly the same. Not only were the spacecrafts created by 3D-rendering software, but the entire video, including the backdrop, foreground and awkward camera work, is fabricated. The creator of the video, known online as “Barzolff81,” has publicly stated that he used a program called “View 6 Infinite” to fabricate the footage for fun.
According to the United States government, a top-secret weather balloon crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in July of 1947. Officials whisked away the materials after civilians discovered them, presenting them for news coverage later on. What was shown by the news was doubtless a weather balloon; however, eyewitnesses claimed that what crashed was something altogether different: an alien spacecraft.
Rumor has it that the spacecraft and its dead occupants were transported to Area 51, a top secret military base in Nevada, for storage and experimentation. The movie ‘Independence Day’ capitalized on this idea, as have many science fiction television shows and books.
The government would have reasons to keep all this quiet, and the Roswell tourist industry has reason to keep people believing. The complicated controversy surrounding this whole ordeal makes one thing clear: while we might not be able to surely say who, someone is definitely faking it.
As the Roswell controversy hit the news, kid pranksters everywhere got hungry for a piece of the action. Armed with cameras, they hurled anything disk-like, from hubcaps to pie plates to saucers, into the sky, faking photos by the dozens. Through a camera lens, an old button on the ground can look like a crashed UFO. Some photos can’t be proven fake: the film is untampered with, and the graininess of the photos themselves prevents even the experts from obtaining definitive answers as to just what is depicted.
While Fox Mulder’s “I Want To Believe” poster is likely a picture of someone’s thrown hat, we’ll never be able to ‘know’ for sure. What we do know for sure, though, is that in the forties, a lot of kids stole mom’s good silver to aid in an afternoon’s mischief, and continue to occasionally do so today. The rest is a matter of likelihood.
Urbanites and rural-dwellers alike are familiar with the crop circle, of English origin. A couple Englishmen took some planks, some rope, and some measurements to a field in 1975, and after a few separate tries, convinced the locals that something wholly unnatural was bending their crops into pretty shapes.
Without a human confession, it was only natural for curious folk to link the big, mysterious, and complex patterns with those big, mysterious, complex UFOs people claimed to see flitting about once in a while. By the time the original human circle makers admitted to their vandalism in 1996, hardly anyone listened. It didn’t matter if crop circles could be easily created with common tools, or that a few people showed exactly how it was done: enthusiasts were determined in their convictions, and continue, despite numerous debunkings, to believe that crop circles are of extraterrestrial origin, even today.
Scientology is the biggest alien fraud of them all. Using the pressuring technique of lie detection (via “e-meter”), the guided reliving of traumatic experiences, and the dangling carrot of the “next level,” L. Ron Hubbard, a famous but mediocre science fiction writer, schemed to take advantage of the bank accounts of the vulnerable by offering them spiritual salvation. Scientology’s followers call it a religion. Everyone else calls it a destructive, dangerous cult.
What does it have to do with aliens, though? Therein lies the cincher: once Scientology inductees have grown brainwashed and vulnerable enough to reach a high level of devotion (OT level 7), they are told of the story of Xenu, which was leaked to the public a few years ago. Many are familiar: Xenu was an intergalactic warlord who, billions of years ago, schemed to commit otherworldy genocide. An entire alien species was dumped into a volcano on Earth, and their ghosts were then shown ‘movies’ of suffering, war, and human religion. These ghosts became thetans, and thetans are what human souls are made of. They cause all human ills. They cling to our subconscious in their misery and confusion, transferring all their problems to us. Scientology, of course, seeks to solve the thetan problem.
Some say Scientologists have retired the story, but the fact remains that this Weekly-World-News-friendly tale was used for decades by the greedy to strengthen the devotion of weary followers. Scientology is now worth millions of dollars due in part to this back story, making it the most successful and fraudulent UFO hoax ever conducted.
Contributor: Currie Jean
113. Davo -
Those “Certified Retards” you’re talking about include astronauts, pilots & military officers – some in charge of U.S. Nuclear Missile defence.
I suppose your own qualifications make your generalised statements carry more authority than these guys?
I’m not saying all of them are speaking the truth – but to discount them “cuz ufo’s are seen by retards” is one of the most retarded statements I’ve ever read.
“Absence of evidence _does not_ imply evidence of absence.”
110. Bella – I totally agree with you. It’s possible; I just don’t believe that they are coming down here and abducting people for ***** experiments and ***** probes. If they are even humanoid, as someone (I forget who) already pointed out.
I think there is life on other planets. Not in this solar system, but until we can travel beyond it, there’s just no way to know for sure.
93. segue – sorry I beat you.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t know that about the first UFO photograph. 
120. Mabel- Exactly. It is possible-maybe even probable-that there is other life on other planets. But the fact that they are coming to abduct us or perform *****ual experiments is absurd. I don’t understand why some people actually believe that, but that’s only my opinion.
Meryl Streep
Roswell = Project Mogul. Done. End of story.
This is a good list, though “UFO Hoax” isn’t an appropriate title… not everything in this list is UFO pertinent.
This is more a list of “Extra Terrestrial hoaxes”, and as that is the case… the War of the Worlds hoax should be on here, and should be in the top 3.
Great list. I’ve noticed something, listversians HATE scientology. (I do too.)
I’m pretty sure there are “aliens” – if by aliens, you mean “life forms ON other planets”. With all the galaxies full of stars and planets, its inevitable.
Now, whether those life forms have the 1) ability or 2) desire to visit us – who knows.
If they have both, why not stick around?
If they only have one or the other, we’ll never see them, but it doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Look at us earthlings. We have the desire, but not the ability to visit planets outside our solar system or galaxy.
We still exist.
If we got the ability, would we go peeking in other planets’ backyards with announcing ourselves. Absolutely. We’d want as much info on the other species as possible before making contact.
If we deem ourselves more advanced, we might pass for better pastures.
If we deem ourselves less advanced, we might pass out of fear.
Either way, I could see Earthlings taking a similar observational stance as any beings visiting us.
Look but don’t touch, try to avoid being seen. If you’re spotted, get out of there.
If we happen to land, out of emergency or accident, keep to uninhabited areas and trust no one.
Once the ability becomes more common, a few will “joy-ride” and scare the locals, but I doubt it would become commonplace.
So I think whatever “aliens” have the ability and desire to visit/spy/explore our planet, are probably following the same mantra we would as explorers ourselves.
wish there was an edit button…
“If we got the ability, would we go peeking in other planets’ backyards withOUT announcing ourselves?”
I agree with most of the posters above – the list, whilst interesting, is mistitled.
Seeing as how most of my bones of contention have been adequately addressed already, I’ll just say that this sentence annoyed me: “The air of tension created by the second world war gets only some of the credit for the uproar” [No 7, War of the Worlds]. War of the Worlds was broadcast in 1938. World War 2 started in 1939. There was an air of tension in the build-up to WW2, sure, but that’s a different thing really.
107. Maggot: 93 segue:…****Well at least you took the time to read all the prior posts before commenting!…kudos. You have spared bucslim from having to off himself again in a rage over repetitious postal content.
****
Thanx. I used to count and post the number of repetitious posts in certain lists, when the number of drive-by or idiot posters would be high.
Truly. I’d count them. Then post something like, “Yes, we missed that the last 34 times it was posted”.
Poor bucky, he needs to get out more.
HAHA aliens exist, but most UFO sightings are definitely hoaxes. I wonder why a lot of people think that if aliens exist then they would be far superior to humans. Aliens are probably just as stupid/evil as we are. (Not that people are that stupid)
The G-spot is located in the anus, so I assume that aliens (who have probably long ceased using ***** as a tool of pleasure and procreation) are trying to discover the human secret of orgasm??? Hence, ***** probes
The Roswell incident is such a hoax but such an important American pop culture icon. Great list
In regards to Roswell I’m not convinced it was a UFO however, Why did the government issue 4 different reports on Roswell, if it was just a weather balloon? To me the craziest one is the officer, who they claim fell out of the balloon, smashed his head and as a result he has all puffy so that’s the alien witnesses saw. The prior report had said it was a crash test dummy. Make up your mind already.
I’ve been to Roswell and I think the town could do much more to exploit the UFO thing than they do I was disappointed at how little UFO stuff there was.
#2 and #4 are a matter of opinion of the author and cannot be disproven with such “proof” offered. Consider the more difficult crop circles, and the fact that the stalks were bent and not broken, and they were blown out..did the frauds carry around microwaves on long extension cords?
Just one thing, if our souls are made of them, why would we wan’t them gone? Doesn’t that mean our souls will be gone aswell? Do we have souls? Am I actually trying to understand Scientology? Am I sleep deprived? Yes.
Stop repeating that I’ll explode if something gets repeated or I’ll explode.
141. bucslim: Deep cleansing breath, bucko…deep cleansing breath…I got over this nuttiness by having an on-line breakdown…Cyn might remember it.
It doesn’t matter, it stopped. I no longer went bonkers about it, and boyohboy did I used to go bonkers! You have nothing on me in that department! Nothing! I’d count the number of repeats in a list of posts and print it out in a post for all to see and to embarrass the poster!
Remember, as I was forced to, it’s just cyber-space.
Another entertaining list, and commentary. Thanks to all
I think the theme of this list is clear:
Any proof of intelligent extra-terrestrial beings coming to earth in spacecraft and interacting with people here is a hoax.
Properties of the universe, namely the inability to propel a vehicle faster than the speed of light, make it impossible to travel the distances required to come here from anywhere.
All science fiction stories require some sort of exception to this rule, like a wormhole or portal, to create a story of galactic travel. Unfortunately, science fact does not allow it except on the level of an energy quantum, like a photon, the famous “spooky action at a distance” described by Einstein.
Similarly, time travel is a literary device, required to create a story, but allowed in science only on the level of a quantum particle’s lifetime.
The chance that equal or higher levels of civilization even exist elsewhere in the galaxy at this time is much less than people think.
The Universe is 13.7 billion years old, life has existed here for 3-4 billion years. But the ability to comprehend the idea of extra terrestrial intelligence is only dozens or hundreds of years old. It adds up to a tiny, lonely flash in a big pan. (Micheal Shermer addressed this in his Aug. 02 Scientific American column “Why ET Hasn’t Called”
Why is it that in spite of the endless deluge of photographs and accounts, simple clear proof of ET remains out of our grasp?
Why is it that as our technology has reached the point that anyone can access an image of any point on the earth, simple clear proof is just as distant as it was in 1947?
The answer: it does not exist.
People, now as much as ever, believe what they want to believe, the weight of the acquired knowledge of civilization be damned.
p.s. I think the plural of Bigfoot is Bigfoots, just as the hockey team is the Toronto Maple Leafs, not Maple Leaves.
I don’t think that Bigfoot exist, although they are more likely to than space aliens. At least they would be of this earth.
141 buc: On the contrary, I figured you’d be puddling up over such conscientious posting protocol as exhibited by segue in her 93.
krchuk: If you nothing about the female anatomy then just don’t say anything.
just kidding
“#122. Rob
Dear All,
I’m going to protest the listing of #2 -Crop Circles.
If you believe you can brush away the phenomena because a pair of farmers with planks said ‘they did it’ – patterns so complex like the one depicted above (i’d challenge anyone to try and come up with one that looks as original and mathematically sound) – then you’re as gullible.
There is real science behind crop-circles, and I’d suggest you investigate the phenomena a little further before settling for the “Farmer dunnit” argument.”
It’s amusing that almost every defendant of an extraordinary claim backs it up with “investigate it!” or “read up on it!” yet provides no credible sources in which to do so. Sorry Rob, but conspiracy theory sites and UFOevidence.org doesn’t count. They already have their conclusion and are simply searching for things to justify it. That’s the REVERSE of how science works.
You are right however, there is a real science behind crop circles. Doug Bower and Dave Chorley used mathematics and physics to create the designs they did and over the years, many others followed in their “plank-steps”.
If you’re going to limit your “investigation” to Google, I suggest typing in Doug Bower and Dave Chorley’s names, rather than “Crop Circles” as that may give you a somewhat biased result.
Here’s a fun website:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/dougdave.html
Explore the whole site, it’s hours of fun!
That link briefly explains the crop circle hoax. Lengthy really isn’t necessary but there are more detailed explanations. If you need additional evidence, check out Jim Schnable’s “Round in Circles”.
Where are Jemaine and Bret?
Wow. What a bunch of bickering children. This list really got some folks’ dander up. Here’s a thought, fellas: Shower, turn off the World of Warcraft, go outside, get a job and interact with people. Preferably people without aluminum foil hats. Getting worked up over this sort of thing just puts on display how awkward and un-dateable a person can be. Remember, these lists are opinion, and are largely for entertainment only. Everybody just chill.
Oh, and everybody with a brain knows that crop circles are actually created by young bigfeet who travel to England from Canada to study abroad as part of a little-known sasquatch-exchange program focusing on studies in both macroeconomics and the culinary arts. The crop circles come out of essentially a dare rooted in a hazing ritual for newly arriving bigfeet in the program. It’s similar to the antics of hopeful fraternity pledges on college campuses – just with much hairier students. Duhhh, I thought everyone knew that.
Dr Frank Drake hypothesised a formula about how likely the probability of us being contacted by aliens is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation. Unfortunately the variables are so large that the answer ranges from likely to virtually impossible. Scientists best guesses to the factors involved suggest intelligent life elsewhere is likely, but contact isn’t. So the chances of aliens visiting earth is virtually impossible.
Even if we were visited, would you believe it? I wouldn’t unless I saw it with my own eyes.
I would love to think that aliens would come to earth, but it hasn’t happened. I agree with a post above; they are looking up at the stars and wondering why we haven’t visited them!
If the human civilization lasts long enough, we will send (unmanned) space craft to many planets and systems, and may discover something. Even if they were launched today, none of us will live long enough to see the signals beamed back.
I’ve never actually bothered with finding out exactly what scientology is based on, so this was quite a revelation. I would love to get together with my fellow listversians and have a good laugh at the expense of Ron Hubbard, Tom Cruise, Travolta etc. but instead I’d like to see any believers actually try to defend ‘xenu’ and ‘thetans’. Even thetans should have the right to explain themselves.
Any sceintologists care to try?
Maybe Ron Hubbard started this as an experiment to see how many people he can get to believe in his sci-fi story. But now since it’s attracted so many (rich) people it’s gotten too big and now he might never disclose this as a hoax.
149. Tomo
He may never disclose it as a hoax but here’s an interesting quote from a few short years prior to establishing scientology:
“If you want to make a little money, write a book. If you want to make a lot of money, create a religion.”
There was some website I stumbled upon…clambake? something like that… There were stories from ex-scientologists and children raised as scientologists who left. They tried to encourage scientologists to defend their stance but it’s so mired in secrecy that not many will bother/try/risk offending xenu. I tried to read some of the testimonials, but it was hard… too many abbreviations and shorthand terms that I couldn’t understand.
#20
That’s a sequence of three rock operas by Ayreon lol.
The Final Experiment – A blind minstrel in King Arthur’s court (Ayreon) has visions of humanity’s path to annihilation, the townspeople are disturbed by his stories and seek to kill him.
01011001 [Binary for"Y"] Planet Y: A race of artificially-immortal aliens lose their sense of purpose and descend into decadence. Realizing their seemingly inevitable collapse, they decide to form life on another planet (Earth) to regain a purpose for their existence. They decide to create life on Earth, leading to creatures like them (Humans).
But things obviously do not go well. Near the end of the album, things start to go downhill, as we poison our environment, succumb to disease, and kill one another, they seek a way to reverse what has been done. A crack team of scientists decide to transmit a message back through time as a warning to stop our destruction (these are the visions Ayreon has), but because of the events in TFE, things do not change:
“I have sent it but nothing changes
Just a line in some ancient lore
I don’t know just how far it reaches
Everything’s like before” (“E=MC2)
The war occurs in 2084, and the finale is told by the alien narrators (as is most everything in the album, except for three songs), and ends with the last man on Earth fleeing with them. This last man makes his home on Mars and enters the Universal Migrator.
Universal Migrator – The last man on Earth flees to Mars and enters a device known as the Universal Migrator to discover what went wrong and visits different eras in human history, from humanity’s final suicide in 2084 to the first homo sapien, and drifts through space towards the beginning of the universe, and finally dies within the UM.
UM was released years before “Y”, but I consider it the chronological finale. This is the final chapter in the story.
151 Cont.
Do I believe the story Ayreon has told? Absolutely not. But is it interesting and entertaining? I think so. I find it to be philosophical, not unlike Lucifer’s Council in the beginning chapters of Paradise Lost.
All you have to do to learn much more about this is actually study the info that’s out there and learn to seperate the wheat from the chaff. Millions of people have filmed them and reported them–just because you may assume each and every one of those people is a liar or a fool doesn’t make it so. UFO’s have tailed most of our space missions–look it up for yourself. Strap some boards to your feet and try to make a crop circle–and remember, real crop circles have every grain of wheat bent at a perfect 90-degree angle, unbroken. Look up the Varginha Event, etc. There is plenty of information out there if you’re not too lazy to do some research.
I have seen alien spacecraft–not “UFO’s”, alien spacecraft–on several occasions, once close-up as it hovered only a few feet off the ground and was buzzed by a pair of F-16′s. That sighting lasted for 42 minutes. It doesn’t matter if you believe that or not–it happened anyway.
Anyway, I don’t need to convince anyone of anything. I’m just saying that anyone who honestly investigates this rather than just prejudging it and shooting off their mouth will inevitably come to the conclusion that we are indeed being visited. If you think we’re not, you haven’t actually studied this subject much.
I do belive in aliens I got a real alien in my life my mother in law. And maby just maby my ex Girlfriend
…… .LOL. And best of it all I am one HAHA
Interesting list, but I think the comments are a lot more interesting. Now my turn to stir the pot.
Crop circles – A couple of years ago I saw a special about the farmers and how they made their circles. When they attempted to make one for the show they broke almost every stem, whereas the REAL crop circles all the stems are bent, not broken. The producers of the program tried various ways to reproduce a circle, but couldn’t do one without breaking stems. It seemed to me to show that the farmers were trying to cash-in on the circles.
Aliens – All life on earth could be alien. Scientists have revived ancient bacteria that was frozen for over a million years. They have also found amino acids in meteors that are nothing like any found on earth. So as I see it all life could have come from other planets. I am not sure if this is how it happened, but it is possible.
Lister-Ian this one is for you
You say that universe is not old enough for technology to be advanced to the point of interstellar travel. It is very dangerous to base that on what we have achieved in our time here. When we made our first hand axe, it took mankind another million years before we made a handle. Steam power has been around for over 2000 years, but it wasn’t until the 19th century that we used steam in a productive way, and how far have we come since then. How far advanced would we be if instead of a million years between axe and handle, it was a thousand. Or the Romans with all their advances had worked out how to use steam. Where are we going to be in two thousand years.
Then you have to take into account the millions of years before us that life has been on this planet. If an alien species started at the same time as life on earth, took about ten million years to make their axe, skipped the large gaps between innovations, we would be a curiosity to them. I am not saying that they are among us, but to rule it out is very narrow-minded.
And to all you people that say the odds of life being out there, whatever the odds are, I can be pretty sure that there are more stars than that figure.
#61 Randall:
“In point of fact, Horgen, over the years (since the late 1940s) there have been a great many sightings of UFOs in South America, Europe, Mexico, and parts of Asia. Brazil alone has accounted for a huge percentage of sightings, and Britain has had more than its share.
Let’s not make smartass remarks when we don’t know what we’re talking about, hmmm?”
I guese I stand corrected….?
But anyway, why dont you take a look ar this:
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=515
Randall, you seem to be the expert here so is this map lying to us?
sorry, wrong link.
This is the one:
http://ufosbest.blogspot.com/2008/04/ufo-sightings-maps.html
comment 154?!?! wtf?
Who in their right mind would want to become a Scientologist? Oh wait, they aren’t in their right minds, my bad.
Horgen:
It’s amazing how some people just refuse to admit when they were wrong.
Look Horgen, you said “almost every sighting of a UFO” has happened in America. This is, quite simply, untrue. Now, I couldn’t open the map from the first link you sent, but with the second one, EVEN IF you assume it to be accurate, what you apparently fail to see is that the apparent number of sightings for Europe is nearly as dense as those for North America.
But wait a second. (And this is why we shouldn’t just readily swallow everything we see on the internet). That image, from the second link, is rather suspicious. What it looks like to me is in fact a satellite image of lights and population concentrations—keeping very much in line with similar satellite images I’ve seen before of city lights. To further compound this, one wonders who A) compiled this “map” and B) why it in fact so much LOOKS like a satellite image.
But all this is beside the point. I never said that UFO sightings were EQUALLY distributed around the globe. I made a point, in fact, of saying that even if you could establish that the great majority of UFO sightings occurred in the US, then this would only serve to support the hypothesis that UFOs are in fact merely secret/experimental US aircraft. But my main point was to correct your mistaken claim that “ALMOST ALL” ufo sightings have been made in the US. This simply is NOT the case.
If you knew anything about the subject, you’d know that in fact South America has had a gigantic number of sightings logged over the years (along with Mexico) and that Europe, particularly certain countries, has had more than its share as well.
Another point about that second image link you presented—it seems to distribute ufo sighting in the US in a way I’ve never seen—basically blanketing the country. AGAIN–this looks suspiciously to me like something else that has been proferred as a “map” of ufo sightings. South America is underrepresented (along with a few other spots) and if anything the US and Europe seem overrepresented, compared to data I’ve seen before.
And far be it for me to contradict the folks at Cornell’s “Ask an Astronomer,” (a site I have some experience with) as I have a great deal of respect for them in most things. But they’re not experts in the field of ufology (not that I claim to be one either) but rather their job is simply to answer questions pertaining to astronomy. In this they do a great job, but I wouldn’t expect them to know the actual distribution of ufo sightings around the world.
At any rate, AGAIN, the point was that laughing off UFO sightings just because YOU think that almost all happen in the US (and that therefore we can put them down to stupid yokels seeing things that aren’t there) is not only wrong, it also misses a point–that the locations of sightings, worldwide, may indicate the point of origin of many of these “objects” and possible aircraft–OR may also indicate places of population density where people are statisically more likely to see something odd in the sky.
I Agree with you Jfrater and have been trying to convince my friends for years that if, in fact, aliens exist – maybe they are just humans from the future.
How’s this for a chain? I go onto Cracked.com, read their article including David Lynch and his legendary bomb “Heaven’s Gate,” notice a section about an exploding horse, think to myself “There’s no way…”, go on YouTube to see if it’s true, search for “Heaven’s Gate”, come across the very video that was used in THIS ListVerse article, and I notice one of the commenters asks, “OK, who else came here from ListVerse?” So, being curious, I come to ListVerse to check out this crazy article concerning hoaxes and UFOs and such.
And that is how I can link Cracked.com to ListVerse.com
As an aside, my dad (who used to work for the government) claims he knew people who were actually at Area 51. They’re plane had gone down in a routine training exercise, and since Area 51 was the closest base, they were taken there…with their heads covered in black masks so they couldn’t see anything. Then they just waited there for someone to pick them up.
Of all the “Area 51 stories,” this one has to be true; it’s by far the most mundane.
Randall… Calm the ***** down!
Im not assuming anything. I was just asking if that map were lying. And I havent done the research to notice that UFO sightings happens everywhere that you are saying but this list seems to be very americanized.
Im not laughing and im not judging anything.
Its just you randall thats overreacting and obiously you are the expert. And I sense this is a very sensitive subjekt for you.
Im just not that interested in making research in something like UFOs. My research consists mainly of vaginas and poop.
Have a great life with your spaceships Randall.
162. Phillies: I believe your story. My dad worked for a company in Los Angeles which did a lot of work for the government, putting up anti=personnel barriers around things like missile silos, government airfields, space installations (Cape Canaveral), etc.
One of his friends, on a different crew, was with a group that was picked up at the “shop” every Monday morning, early (still dark), and loaded into buses without windows in the passenger cabin, and a steel gate between the passengers and driver.
They were taken to an airport, loaded onto an airplane, again without windows in the passenger cabin, and flown several hours in several directions. When they finally landed, all they knew was that they were in a desert.
They worked all week, no phone calls or letters of course, and after work on Friday the travel arrangements were reversed.
Now, here’s the weird part. Every single man on the crew died within 15 years of cancer.
“153. Soulcatcher
There is plenty of information out there if you’re not too lazy to do some research.”
Please provide us with some of the sources of this information, because the only resources I can find to substantiate these claims are Pro-UFO based sites that provide no evidence, and quantify the claims with the same anecdotal evidence you supply. Conspiracy theory sites that have as much credibility as the Weekly World News hardly seem worthy, surely you can’t mean those. It’s one thing to tell someone to investigate, it’s quite another to provide the resources that have solidified your belief.
Come on Soulcatcher, let’s have it. Scientific journals that include clinical studies with empirical evidence and eye-witness accounts that cannot be explained by scientific means and have stumped the scientific world for decades.
I mean, with everyone and their uncle owning a video camera these days, surely SOMEONE must have clear concise images of alien spacecrafts that can’t be dissected as fraudulent. Why are there no accounts of futuristic, shiny spacecraft with coloured flashing lights, tractor beams and super speed, occurring in the 18th and 19th century? Is it because the aliens didn’t have that technology 200 short years ago? Or is it because people in the 1700′s didn’t know what a coloured flashing light was, or a shiny metallic spacecraft, having never been exposed to either of these gadgets? It seems that these sightings only began after the dawn of science-fiction and as space exploration became more prevalent in the mid-twentieth century. Wouldn’t that seem a much more plausible explanation? Or do you simply believe what you want to believe because YOU find that more interesting?
In contrast to your lack of resources, here are some of my resources I’ve used to get my information:
http://www.carlsagan.com/
http://richarddawkins.net/
http://www.skeptic.com/
http://www.randi.org/site/
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/
http://www.sciencemag.org/
http://www.nature.com/
http://www.snopes.com/
http://www.skeptics.ca/
Now if you’re not too lazy, you should have no trouble spending a few hours sifting through those and reading some of the articles and/or books they suggest. You’ll find that science and evidence-backed facts are far more rewarding than conjecture and opinion. Give reality a try… it’s actually pretty interesting!
If you need more, let me know.
How can seemingly intelligent people (celebrities especially) be so stupid and naive as to believe in Scientology? It’s sad really.
Horgen:
Look, pal… YOU’RE the one who started with a smart-ass crack about ufo’s being seen almost exclusively in the United States, and then followed with this–AND I QUOTE:
“Or maybe people in america…like drugs more?
Or are their just alot of morons and idiots?”
So don’t get all defensive and touchy NOW, Horgen. You opened your mouth and inserted your foot into it. Pure and simple.
Now, I am NOT, as it happens, “sensitive” about this subject. Nor am I by any means an “expert.” I have some knowledge of it, as it’s an interest of mine purely for entertainment purposes, and I have a relative who investigates these things. But that’s it. But it doesn’t take a lot of research or even paying much attention to know that ufos are witnessed the world over, not just in the US and not even *overwhelmingly* in the US.
I don’t even BELIEVE in ufos (as extraterrestrial spacecraft that is).
I just don’t like smart remarks from people who should know better—A) about any particular subject at hand and B) about the US. (“morons and idiots.” Yeah, okay. We have our share of morons and idiots over here Horgen, but I guarantee you the percentage of them is pretty much identical to that in YOUR homeland, wherever that may be—or anywhere else for that matter).
Horgen:
And by the way, you’re reading too much emotion into my words. I’m not at all upset or even angry. If anything, simply amused and slightly irked.
Re-read my second post to Horgen. It wasn’t insulting or touchy in any way. I was actually just answering your question and comments to me. I don’t think it was a gigantic assumption on my part that you were cracking wise a tad in your first posting—again, note the quote I cited above.
Really, Horg, if anyone’s overreacted here, it’s you.
I will now go and insert a foot and a gun i my mouth and slowly push the trigger and dedicate it to Randall who showed me what im worth.
…why did my mom give birth to me…..
XoXo
Horgen:
Well there’s no need to get sarcastic…
(ha ha).
But of course, Horgen, if you off yourself, you won’t learn nuthin’!
friends?
Currie Jean:
Come on. This was just lazy. Honestly. These were not hoaxes…these were CLASSES of hoaxes. Some of them weren’t even hoaxes at all! Number 10, for instance. First of all, this is not famous, or at least not famous enough to warrant a spot on a top 10 list of most famous hoaxes. Secondly, it wasn’t a hoax, as it was never presented as real. Secondly, since when has a tabloid ever pulled off a successful UFO hoax that fooled anybody? And if they have, why isn’t THAT hoax up here, instead of the asinine “sensationalist tabloids?” Lazy, just lazy.
Moving right along, we find the infamous War of the Worlds broadcast. It doesn’t take a person of above-average intelligence to realize that this was not a hoax either. It was a goddamn RADIO BROADCAST that some people mistook for real. It wasn’t a hoax because it was never presented as authentic. Some ignorant fools thought it was real, but thats because they are gullible and have short attention spans.
Next we find Heaven’s Gate/Hale Bopp. Good gravy, are you even aware what the word “hoax” means? It means to intentionally deceive into believe in a false or fraudulent claim. The leader of the Heaven’s Gate cult was not intentionally deceiving anyone. He literally thought there was a UFO following Hale Bopp. I mean, he committed goddamn SUICIDE over his belief. There was no intentional deception at work here, just a crazy cult leader and a bunch of desperate, weak-minded fools following him.
At number 4, we have Roswell. Again, for Pete’s sake, this is NOT a hoax!! Putting aside for the moment the ridiculous Area 51 connection (which has no part in the original story by the way – good detective work, there, Currie), most scholars of the Roswell incident acknowledge there was a gov’t coverup, but it was no hoax. The incident was not intended to intentionally deceive people into believing a UFO had crashed…that’s just what people believed anyway. If a hoax did occur, it was that the gov’t intentionally deceived people into thinking the crashed object was a simple weather balloon, when all historical evidence suggests that it was a high-altitude experimental spy balloon, designed just prior to the cold war to spy on US enemies. If you had just looked for 5 mins on the “teh interwebs,” as you undoubtedly refer to it, you would know this.
Numbers 3 and 2…CLASSES of hoaxes. CLASSES, Currie. And its not been determined that ALL crop circles and ALL photographs of UFOs were intended as hoaxes, or debunked as fake. I’m casting no judgement of their authenticity, but you clearly seem to know the story behind EVERY crop circle and EVERY photograph, enough to say that EVERY single one of them is a hoax. This is just lazy. When you speak of a list of hoaxes, you imply SPECIFICS!!!!!
Lastly…Scientology….really?? Scientology is NOT a UFO hoax. They have a particular belief about extraterrestrials that are whacked out, no doubt. And no doubt L Ron created this story, knowing it was a hoax. But that means that a SPECIFIC BELIEF of scientology is hoax-material, not scientology was a whole. I’m not defending scientology here, from anything except your utter laziness.
Seriously, Currie. Bad form. Lists should take longer than 10 mins. If I put the kind of effort into a list that you put into here, I could scratch my balls and lists would drop off like hairs. This list certainly left a similar taste in my mouth. Next time, how about taking a little pride in your work?
Jfrater: Shame on you, man, for letting material as lazy and slipshod as this to be posted. I’m sure you realize that posting crap like this degrades the overall quality of your website…my question is, why? A list like this could have been SO good. I’m just shocked, really. For someone who writes great lists, I would think you better than most what constitutes an acceptable piece of work.
The above list was not plagiarizing on Randall. Or I didn’t mean to, anyway.
SLICKWILLY!!! Where have you been, pal? Good to “see” you.
Horgen:
Of course!
Just don’t cross me.
(ha.)
Interesting list, and even more interesting comments.
I love reading the comments, because it gives you more insight on the topic of the list, and also because the comments are hilarious!
Baxter- Haha no, not for meat. It would be awesome to see one though wouldn’t it?
170 SlickWilly: I could scratch my balls and lists would drop off like hairs. This list certainly left a similar taste in my mouth.
Don’t know about you Slick, but I am unfamiliar with that taste.
That last comment by Maggot is a perfect example of my comment right above it.
166. Randall
“I don’t even BELIEVE in ufos (as extraterrestrial spacecraft that is).”
That pretty much sums it up. I’ve spent years thinking about it, since I was seven years old and believed in such things.
Here’s one reason why.
The famous formula, E=mc2(squared), the equivalency of mass and energy, where the speed of light is the constant – could be rearranged to c2=E/m, I know there are people who would argue that mathematically this is not proper – but I’m simply making a very important point. The distance a craft would have to travel and the time of transit, dependent on velocity, can be thought of in terms of energy. To move a mass across an enormous distance at a speed that would make it logistically practical would involve such an enormous amount of energy that there is no known or theoretical way that this could be achieved.
Sorry for all you Trekies out there – there is no warp drive, it’s fictional, doesn’t exist. As to how you can get around this fundamental physical law – suppositions don’t count, suppose all you want, but never to be seriously considered – theories about time space warps and BS worm holes are not really theories unless you want to throw common sense out. (more “why not” thinking). There are no alien spacecraft visiting Earth because they simply can’t get here. Technology cannot override physical law of this magnitude.
Life elsewhere – no doubt about it, stable atmosphere and temperature, ample solvent and reagents, luck of a long duration – chemistry. Life is a self sustaining chemical reaction. On Earth it took on in the form organic polymerization. Intelligence is an survival adaptation – should eventually come about.
@Davo. You have no right to deny what people have seen. Aliens obviously hate you and can’t be bothered to show themselves to you. I would love your explanation of hundreds of lights above my town in the 90′s.
“Oh they were military operations, or flares, or planes or helicopters.”
Being unable to prove something does not disprove it, as some “fools” may claim.
Nice list, disappointed at number 4 – Roswell was not a hoax, nor is Area 51.