Expert: Philip Stahl - 12/23/2008

Question
I have two questions I hope yhou don't think are too frivolous: 1) Is is possible that alien civilizations could be surveying our planet with UFOs?, 2) Have you yourself ever observed such an object in your experience?

Thanks!

Answer
Hello,

Actually, I paused when I saw the question header as I've been receiving a lot of "fringe" questions of late (e.g. cosmic catastrophes, polar shifts, Mayan 'end of the world' 2012 forecasts, Limbaughian bloviations on "lost daylight" and so forth. But, on looking at your prior record of questions I can see that all have been serious such as the ones on the Stokes parameters in the astrophysics forum.

So let us begin with (1):

First, it is important to understand that a ‘UFO’ is **not** the same as a "space ship", or extraterrestrial craft. One of the best definitions ever given was by astrophysicist J. Allen Hynek of Northwestern University, who devoted many years to the scientific study of the UFO phenomenon. His definition, the most objective ever, remains the standard as given in his book, 'The UFO Experience':

“A UFO is the reported perception of an object or light – seen in the sky or upon the land, the appearance, trajectory and general dynamic and luminous behavior of which do not suggest a logical, conventional explanation and which is not only mystifying to the original percipients but remains unidentified after close scrutiny of all available evidence by person who are technically capable of making a common sense identification if one were possible”


The essence of the preceding is that it leaves the UFO unidentified. I am a stickler for this because one thing we cannot permit is the definition to descend to the most popular usage or vernacular. Once we take that fateful step, and simply accept "UFO" = "alien spacecraft" then stupidity reigns, as well as loss of logic, not to mention conflating the people who really DO observe unidentifieds with those loonies who claim to be seeing spaceships. (The probability of which I assert to being somewhere between the global warming skeptics being proven true, and my winning the next $300 million Powerball with one random ticket!)

Note the key phrase is not ‘reported alien craft’ but rather ***‘reported perception’***.  

This is reasonable, since at the outset one cannot possibly know whether a light seen in the sky is even a solid object, which would imply being an artifact. Also, a ‘UFO’ (Unidentified Flying Object) cannot also be an IFO! If you knew that the phenomenon was an alien craft, why would you refer to it as a UFO or ‘unidentified’? Why not just say "alien spaceship" and be done?  The reason is that people attempt to deflect others' skepticism by employing what they *think* is a euphemism for it.

The essence of the definition is that it acknowledges that there is no conventional explanation that fits the observed description – including the dynamical or motion aspects, and the light aspects. Thus, whatever it was, it fits into no known category. The idea that the UFO is some kind of alien ship, or extraterrestrial craft, is only one possible hypothesis for the UFO. It isn’t the only one. Perhaps, for example, it’s some hitherto unknown meteorological phenomenon. (E.g. "Ball Lightning" was an unknown phenomenon for many many years)

In any case, my own impression – based on studying hundreds of such reports submitted to me over twenty years, is that the ‘UFO' = alien craft’ explanation is too facile. Consider the vast number of UFO sightings each year. This translates, on average, into about ten thousand sightings each year.  Surely, there cannot be ten thousand different craft visiting us each year!    

Even allowing for some signal implicit in the number of unknowns (about 5% of the total), the variety of shapes and sizes would suggest a figure of at least five hundred.  Five hundred craft from another world - or from five hundred different worlds visiting humans each year? Earth as a galactic hub?  No way!  Not now, or ever! We simply aren't that important. We are little better than a backward ape still mired in atavistic behaviors, barely a million years from our knuckle-dragging past. (Though sometimes I wonder how many of us have actually left that past!)

I simply can't accept that any race of supposedly intelligent beings would regard the human species and its humdrum little world, two-thirds of the way out to a humdrum spiral galaxy - as that important - and consume so much energy in such an extended endeavor!

Energy, even for very intelligent aliens, must be extremely resource-intensive.  And though highly advanced, I can't see how these hypothetical beings could bypass fundamental physical laws such as entropy.. To imagine that any civilization can afford to squander energy on thousands of yearly visitations to a backwater world borders on the ridiculous.  It is also a form of anthropocentric arrogance, which reinforces archaic notions that Earth and its human inhabitants are at the cultural, religious and sociological centers of the cosmos

Now we move on to (2):

My UFO sighting (and let's again bear in mind Hynek's def. here) occurred in the summer of 1962 while at the opening of a shopping center in Carol City, Florida.  While awaiting the start of festivities I happened to look up at the night sky, being the amateur astronomer that I was.  Amazingly, I witnessed a brilliant orange disc, at least the same diameter as a full Moon moving rapidly from north to south.  It hovered for two to three seconds above the crowd at the shopping center and I detected the odd "Oooh" or "Aaah" from random spectators.  Thus, I knew I was not having a simple hallucination  (at least not by myself!)

The most ironic and notable thing to me was the complete absence of sound.  No whirring, like one would expect from a helicopter's propeller blades, or engine noise.  The object - if "object" it was - appeared to be a light source rather than just reflecting light from elsewhere. After about three seconds it took off due south at what I estimated to be an incredible speed.  As a seasoned sky observer, even at the age of 16, I was able to quickly eliminate all known man-made or natural objects from consideration: Venus, airplane, bright star, ball lightning, weather balloon, dirigible, etc. you name it.  The exceptional luminous and dynamical behavior allowed this.  Nevertheless, to this day I’m not prepared to pinpoint a specific hypothesis.

Yes, it did appear to emulate some manner of intelligent control, but I cannot firmly say it was a ‘craft’. The reason is that I never got close enough to determine if it was a genuine solid object, or just a light. For all I know, it could have been some kind of hologram, though this seems unlikely.  The other notable aspect here was that the next day's Miami Herald reported a "bogey" detected at the Miami International Airport within ~1 minute of the time the crowd observed it in Carol City. (Carol City is roughly 20 miles north of Miami International, so if we were to take the apparent speed literally it could have been as high as ~ 1200 mph)

Though my brothers who observed it with me have always called it "an alien craft", I am not prepared to go there because I think that amounts to jumping to conclusions. We would need to amass far more evidence of the type Solar physicist Peter A. Sturrock references in his excellent monograph: ‘The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence’, pp. 94-95. I also highly recommend obtaining this book which paves the way for a detailed, dispassionate scientific treatment of the phenomenon.

Of particular note is his section on image analysis (ibid.) which includes attention to: 1) Micro-densitometry scans:  e.g. using the Joyce Loebl Recording Micro-densitometer to ascertain variations in optical density in the print; 2) Black and white enlargements on different wavelength sensitive papers:  Comparison between UFO (disk) images on panchromatic and blue-green paper may show features visible in one, that are not evident in the other; 3)Computer-based contrast enhancement: e.g. digitization of negatives using a scanning densitometer.

Comparisons of enhancements using various filters (e.g. blue, green, orange, etc. show differential detail that must be accounted for if any given image is to be validated.

This book I regard as must reading for anyone interested in the scientific aspects of this phenomenon, especially as it shows clearly that a scientific approach is indeed feasible!

Hope this information has been helpful!