Reading the latest posts on this subject, I have had a few thoughts on the subject, minor ones to be sure....

MIB: I worked on the New Haven RR with Albert Bender's chief acolyte for several years in the 1970's. He told me some of the details about Albert's encounter with the original MIB's.

I will not recount it here, but it seems that firstly; The MIB's never exceed the expectations of the person reporting them, that is; they act exactly like the person expects....Bender worked himself into a frenzy over Flying Saucers, and when nothing definate turned up to back up this belief, he came up with the now famous MIB story. It is hard to explain in few words, but as I see it, since the MIB visits are most likely psychological in nature, and not real, they represent the person's inner fears and expectations......

Secondly; The ufos are always evolving and reflect the current culture. There are many examples of this; The first ufos were dirigibles with totally fantastic features, and their messages were consistent with the issues of the day.....Next; They started to have features like current aircraft, the ghost planes of the 1920's did not have flashing lights, but current ufos have them, just like aircraft....

The messages given by these supposed visitors are usually reflective of the times and the inner state of the witnesses. The airships of 1898 gave information about the current flap of the Cuban revolution against Spain, the 1950's ufos told us to stop atomic tests, and lately they give ecological messages.....I know of no case that exhibits anything outside the parameters of the time and person. If someone does, post it here, I would like to hear about it....

Dale

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"Ad astra per aspera"

Nice point Vonmazur. It would have been nice if the ufo's had let us know about our coming ecological problems before, you know, we already knew.

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"What are the facts? Again and again and again — what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!" ~ Robert A. Heinlein

are you claiming that some of the '57 species of aliens known to man' can see into the future? - i think that's a bit far fetched!

A) Please provide evidence to support there being "57 species of alien known to man" or even any species of aliens known to man.
B) Presuming that they are reasonably inteligent and have an understanding of the universe equal to what we have now then predicting the current environmental problems prior to their happening isn't difficult, its just a case of extrapolating from existing data into the future not some kind of psychic woo woo stuff.

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"Any Sufficiently Analyzed Magic is Indistinguishable from SCIENCE!" -Agatha Heterodyne

"Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those who don't understand it." -Florence Ambrose

please google the following:

a) irony

b) sense of humour

Around here, if you're joking, just tell us. Otherwise, it's almost impossible to tell. Just look at the recent discussion about a guy who says he gets telepathic transmissions from aliens that look like Sears catalog models. And another who thinks the moon has a thick atmosphere because he doesn't know how to take a photograph. And fairly recently there was the fellow who said the Earth is a tree. Some time back, there was the guy arguing for Martian rock sheep and another that thinks the sun has a solid iron shell. Oh, let's not forget the planet massed comet, or Earth crossing the center of the galaxy.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

I think the pair of smilies was a bit of a clue, Van Rijn.

Nice round-up!

Can you remind me which thread featured the last of these? I thought at first he simply believed Earth would cross the galactic plane, but later he did appear to think it was the actual centre.

You're probably right, but it's still getting tough to tell. I think my joke detector was broken with that alien transmission stuff. That was being stated as if it should be taken seriously, yet it was such a painfully obvious hoax. If somebody can believe that nonsense, they can believe just about anything.

This is the one I'm thinking of:

is it just me or is the milky way brighter..?

It's true that it might just be the choice of wording, but he was wondering if the Milky Way was getting brighter, and his statements were, "I did some research is that the galactic center is in the constellation Sagittarius. Are we going to cross the galactic center in 2012??" and "I, for one, believe that our solar system is going to enter galactic center in 2012"

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Ah yes, that one. Thanks for the link.

This is all pretty lame, makes me want to bite people . . .

Bite me!

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0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

Some of us tend to bite back...

Now you're talking guys . . . I like it.

...creepy...

and then some . . .

Hi Dale.

Are you familiar with UFO artwork BC?

To me it seems the aliens and their craft haven't changed all that much.

Also, check the AD artwork as well.

"Hats" and "saucer" shapes abound!

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

I wonder where the MIB were for the ancients, and why such large depictions of alien craft survived through the years.

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If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you. - George Bernard Shaw

Indeed!

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Large depictions of alien craft? Never happened. They have all been explained away as something else. I'm surprised you didn't know that. Experts say so. Just like the ufos. Just stories concocted by liars, crazy people, attention getters, hoaxers and people who only think they saw what they say they saw. Natural phenomena, inversions, misidentified aircraft, clouds, venus, mars, stars, illusions, you name it. How could they be crafts when we have all these other alternatives?
Get real man--joe

Guys: Scientific Parsimony rules out the usual explanations for supposed ancient sightings, but the record is clear, no one in 1899 saw a saucer (At least none are famously reported like the airships...) in the 20's it was Ghost Airplanes, and after the pulp sci fi of the 40's, Hats and Saucers. John Keel covered this years ago, and I agree with this part of his work.

Dale

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"Ad astra per aspera"

Of course. What could I have possibly been thinking?
Just in case my point was missed, though - if those are ancient depictions of alien craft, why weren't they destroyed centuries ago by ancient MIB or similar agents?

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If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you. - George Bernard Shaw

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I hate being wrong, but love it when i'm set straight. Harlan Ellison

There is likely some truth to that to a degree. That kind of progression makes all the sense in the world and likely plays a big part in some or even many of these sightings. But there are just too many sightings to sluff it all off to misidentification. Something is winging around up there besides our aircraft, they have been for some time apparently and by the observable circumstances we did not manufacture them. I don't know who did and I don't pretend to know what they are doing up there but they have been seen in too many numbers and too often to write them off as complete hogwash. (my fave scientist likes that word, makes me feel smart)--joe

I'm familiar with the "artistic stylings" and "symbolism" arguments against these paintings representing UFOs, but Polidoro doesn't address those from much earlier times. I wonder how he'd explain those from thousands or tens of thousands of years ago?
What symbolism did a bunch of "hats" represent to stone age man?

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Asked and answered, those depictions were obviously not of alien crafts--see how easy it is to debunk this stuff!

Obvious to you and I, perhaps. Yet, the still images are linked to in support of the idea that they are depictions of an ancient sighting and that that sighting bears similarities to descriptions of modern sightings.

Come to think of it, vonmazur's second point could also apply to modern interpretations of ancient drawings, artifacts, etc. Although, in this case, there is a local Native American legend to go with it.

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If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you. - George Bernard Shaw