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I'll just leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmVwCcUQRjU

That is exactly the difficulty. I have a picture of an object in the sky (which I reported to MUFON) that occurred before this happened. But I have no evidence, other than the fact that other humans also witnessed the object, that it was real.

Since this is the HN crowd, I'll explain it this way: if you assume your brain is a biological machine, what if you could decipher its firmware and hack into it? What if you could remotely exploit it and take over its sensory inputs? It's hard to say if a contact is "conscious" or not because "they" seem to have the power to exploit and control it, to communicate by sending symbolic language and imagery.

Contact is difficult to explain to this crowd; when I turn the tables and imagine someone explaining their experience to me, it would sound like something indistinguishable from magic. Something so unbelievable that you would immediately discount it and look for alternate explanations, or question the person's sanity.

I think too often UFO debates become too "either or". People will say "it can't be aliens; it's advanced technology from Russia or China!"

In all cases... why not both? I think we should open our minds to all the possibilities.

I think it's unlikely that humans are "special". There are billions of possibilities regarding how life could have evolved elsewhere. (And that's not even considering panspermia theories; it could also look very much the same in certain pockets of our, or other, galaxies, due to effects like that.) I think there is likely to be a wide variety of life. I think there are probably other human-like life forms in the universe, just as there are probably life forms that are so different that they might resemble ghosts and angels to us.

One interesting thing about UFO reports is that there are a wide variety when it comes to descriptions of the craft. You have the "classic" saucer shape, cigar shape, "tic tacs", spheres... (etc, etc). I think a lot of the confusion on this topic is due to this inconsistency. What if we're being visited by multiple types of interstellar life?

Anyway, some life in the universe might be more easily anthropomorphized in this way. Some not at all. I certainly don't want to anthropomorphize this phenomenon fully; then I would have to assume that there is a colonization ship on its way and we're all doomed. I hope advanced life in the galaxy isn't the same as humanity, otherwise our planet probably has a very violent future.

I don't think it's anthropomorphism so much as logical deduction. Our planet's chemical makeup has been advertising its life-supporting properties for millions of years. Lately we've been (perhaps foolishly) advertising ourselves to the galaxy via radio, etc. Surely it would be interesting to other observers in the galaxy.

Perhaps by setting off nuclear weapons, we advertised ourselves as a potential threat, inviting more scrutiny.

Here's an article that discusses this concept in more detail, if you're interested:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lets-search-for-a...

Also, Stellaris is a great game for these thought experiments. =)

I, for one, 100% believe that at least some of this is advanced, non-human tech.

Trying to convince HN about the "why" is at best problematic. I could give evidence from my own observations and experiences, but they would be easily dismissed due to lack of evidence.

I'll just say that we, as humans, do not fully understand how consciousness works. I'm certain that there are others in this galaxy who do, and I have personal experience to back that up. What percentage of HN is going to believe that I, for whatever reason, have come into contact with an advanced, non-human intelligence?

Spoiler: near zero. That's why I post about this topic on a burner account.

Just a reminder that Fermi's paradox is no longer a paradox if "they" are already here. ;-)

I'm not saying there are little green men in these unidentified aircraft, but if you were part of an interstellar civilization in this galaxy, and you identified there was a life-supporting planet a few light years away, you'd send probes there for sure... wouldn't you? We certainly would, if we had the means.

Well, to be honest my last sentence was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I truly do want to know why and how it all works. I'm just not comfortable with the idea that anyone with the know-how to do this can invade my privacy, and there's nothing I can do about it.

And I'm not comfortable with the idea that a skilled enough person can use remote viewing to predict the future with near-100% accuracy. Firstly, it just doesn't seem fair. :) Secondly, it makes me question my own free agency in the world. For example, imagine I remote-view your future 5 years from now. Today you might scoff, thinking it's likely to be bullshit. But imagine that ALL my predictions eventually come true. It would feel like the exact opposite of the butterfly effect... as if the moment I viewed your future, it was "observed" and thus became reality. Every decision that you make (or anyone in your life makes) was, from the moment of my prediction, set in stone. I would like to think that the world doesn't work like that... but strangely enough, that's what I've experienced.

Speaking as someone who has seen evidence that remove viewing actually works, put simply: we don't know. But it certainly implies that we don't know everything about the universe and how it works.

I would also point out that any non-obvious technical advancement wouldn't have a plausible mechanism of action, until we learn enough to figure it out.

It's a puzzle I would certainly like to figure out. But it's also a puzzle with far-reaching implications for both physics and society. It would have massive implications for privacy, and even calls free will into question. (If it's possible to remote-view the future, is that just one possible future, or is it /the/ predetermined future?).

You know what? On second thought, even having seen it work, I would be more comfortable staying in denial and assuming it's bullshit. (And THAT is why all this is classified.)

I think I'm a caffeine addict. If I try to quit caffeine, I'll have flu-like symptoms and migraines for at least a week or two. I can see how that's less bad than a heroin addiction, but isn't addiction somewhat of a spectrum?

You might also consider that there are orders of magnitude more stars in our own galaxy than lines of code in any system built on Earth.

I don't want to believe... it's simpler not to. There's a huge stigma against belief in this sort of thing. It's obvious by the responses on this thread; even if you have radar that corroborates sightings filmed on an IR camera, our collective response is still disbelief.

I think this problem is difficult for science to study because it's not readily reproducible. Not only that, but any evidence that /does/ exist has been ridiculed, suppressed, and/or outright ignored for too long. Now we're seeing efforts to reduce the stigma, and I applaud that.

Obviously, for the extraterrestrial theory to work, you have to imagine you can warp or fold spacetime to get where you need to go, rather than using a conventional engine. Then the universe gets a bit smaller.

As someone who has personally seen a couple of these things, I'm convinced that either extraterrestrial anthropologists are observing our planet, or human governments are operating highly advanced, top-secret craft. (I tend to think it's probably both.)

Think of it this way: if a group of violent, power-hungry monkeys on a nearby planet invented ICBMs and nuclear weapons, you'd want to keep an eye on them... wouldn't you?