We’re now almost getting emotional. That’s not a good thing, and harms the original intention of my post.

We were 17. And we didn’t do drugs or drink, not my generation at least (small town kids).

>Numerous studies have indicated that group recollections are as fallacable as individual recollections

I am sorry, but we all saw the same thing _exactly_. That was NO hallucination.

As I said before, I am NOT saying that this was aliens. It could be Americans in an experiemental aircraft. But it was REAL.

I’m not saying you are an idiot. I’m not being offencive. I’m just pointing out that human recollection, especially not one from 15 years old, is what I consider as scientific proof. I’m sorry.

As I said, I wouldn’t trust myself either.

One mind can not be trusted indeed. But 6 can.

No. Numerous studies have indicated that group recollections are as fallacable as individual recollections. These tests usually consist of having a group of people witness a certain event, and then ask them afterwards what the hell’d happened. They all get some details right, but the most crucial things are always wrong and differ among the individuals of the group (ie. skin color, hair color, clothing colors, and even sex; car color, car brand, type, etc.).

It has been filmed A LOT of times, some of them by national TV crews too (e.g. the Phoenix Lights case in 1997 which sparked the interest of the governor of the Arizona too).

I’m not talking about filming a few lights in the sky, Eugenia. I’m thinking about making a film in such a way that you actually see the damn thing.

Thom, don’t take me for a freaking idiot, please. We were 30 meters away from its circular body (with a diameter of about 15 meters), which was hovering about 10 meters in the air, above a house, without making *any* noise.

>the human mind cannot be trusted.

One mind can not be trusted indeed. But 6 can.

>That’s the big problem with these so-called UFO encounters and abductee stories.

I was never abducted, AFAIK. We just had a quick, 1-minute sighting and that’s all. I don’t believe all abduction stories either.

>Give me real-life proof of a UFO. Film the damn thing.

It has been filmed A LOT of times, some of them by national TV crews too (e.g. the Phoenix Lights case in 1997 which sparked the interest of the governor of the Arizona too). Granted, some of them are fabrications, some can be explained otherwise, but some, can not.

I’m talking about the universe as a whole. That’s a mighty important difference.

Let’s assume two things:
1. Infinite number of alien species exist.
2. SOME of them can do interstellar travel (in our galaxy, not out of it).

To find out if they are visiting Earth, we must first find how many of these species has mastered fast interstellar travel. Without this number at hand, you can’t proof one way or another. Because, let’s say, if there are 1000 species that have interstellar travelling, it would take one of them just a few hundrend years to decide to check out Earth, because Earth is one of the candidates. There might be 50,000 good candidates in the galaxy, but dividing 50,000/1000 shows us that it is possible to be discovered by one of them pretty “fast”.

Of course, the 50,000/1000 are totally random numbers, so we can’t proof anything with it. It could very well be 10000000/5, or even 50/100000, we don’t know.

The more you talk about it, the more important, and therefore the more real, it gets. 15 years is a mighty long time.

After 2 years of Psychology, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that the human mind cannot be trusted. I have read gazillion studies on human recollection, and they all confirm one thing: the human mind is a mess when it comes to recollection. It adds details, removes details, changes stuff around, distorts perception of time, and what not.

That’s the big problem with these so-called UFO encounters and abductee stories. They’re all based on recollections from the human mind, and hence, are not to be trusted. At all. I wouldn’t even trust myself were I to ecnounter a UFO and tell people about it.

Give me real-life proof of a UFO. Film the damn thing. Give me alien bodies. Give me scientific proof of the existence of alien visists to our world. Then, and only then, might I believe you that aliens visit our world.

Not a millisecond sooner.

My argumentation was more theoretical than it was practical. I was using strict logic and reasoning to make a point– most of the repliers here started using examples, terminology from scifi shows, ifs and buts, and what not. That was not my intention. I was reasoning the same way Descartes was reasoning when he thought up one of the most famous lines in philospohy– je pense, donc je suis (I think, therefore, I am).

Using nothing more than logic and reasoning, and the most common scientific viewpoint on the size of the universe (which, as Kitty pointed out, was a false assumption on my end but that is beside the point), one can proove, rationally, logically, that lifeforms outside of our planet exist (namely, an infinite amount), but that they do not visit earth (namely, because there is an infinite amount of planets more interesting and more valuable).

I still heard no arguments that exposes the flaw in my reasoning.