MikeD If only your explanation would be made public it would at least silence the flare issue, as it seems to be the number one reason for most "Unexplained" UFO sightings.
Mike's explanation on the flares has been made public. A long time ago.
The actual wedge over the city, it would be interesting to know what it was.
It's just far too coincidental for me to take the "wedge" sightings seriously. Think about it. On a night when a series of military flares are spotted and believed by many to be a giant UFO (or a series of UFOs), there just so happens to also be a big wedge-shaped UFO flying around the same area? Nope, I don't buy a coincidence like that. This seems to me to be nothing more than some people who saw some airplanes flying overhead in formation confusing it as a "wedge-shaped craft." Various types of visual illusions could have caused this. When these people also heard about the lights behind the mountain range, their imaginations went wild. The most credible witness of the supposed "wedge shape" was an amateur astronomer who was observing them with a relatively strong telescope. He said that they were clearly a formation of aircraft. But he gets no attention by the UFO media, because he doesn't support their hysteria.
To those who ask about "Why would aliens use lights?" Maybe they're not lights, they could be an energy source which produces light as a byproduct, not unlike the exhaust on our various engines.
Seems awfully convenient to me. And why are there so many different shapes of craft with so many different kinds of lights? We have saucers, cigars, fireballs, fireballs with tails, wobbling discs, and the list goes on. Am I expected to believe that one race visiting us has all of these different kinds of crafts with all of these different kinds of lights to make them visible? And if the lights are to be explained as propulsion, then all of these different looking craft have different kinds of propulsion systems? Or alternatively, if the argument is that the different kinds of crafts are from different alien cultures, then I'm supposed to believe that dozens of different alien cultures are all zipping around our lower atmosphere without making themselves known? Sorry, both explanations are just too crazy.
To think that in the unlimited expanse of the universe there's not thousands of other civilizations is pretty naive, not to mention the fact that many of them are probably so far advanced it would be beyond our comprehension.
I don't think it's naive at all. First, there are two different ideas here. One is that we are actually alone in the universe, and the other is that we aren't alone but aliens aren't visiting us (and possibly aren't capable of visiting us). I really don't know which of those arguments I believe. I kind of go back and forth. With all of the things that have to come together just perfectly for life to not only exist on a planet, but to also thrive to the point of evolving to an intelligent form over millions or billions of years, I don't think it's at all unlikely that we may just be a giant cosmic accident that can't be duplicated. On the other hand, if there is other life out there, I think it's incredibly unlikely that they would be able to reach us. From all that we know of science so far (and I acknowledge that that is limited), it doesn't seem possible that faster-than-light travel is viable in any useful form. I think it's possible that other life exists, but it just isn't capable of reaching us, even if they cared to.
All of that being said, if they're going to "visit" us, I kinda wish they would do it in my lifetime... just because it's neat
Eh, I tend to side with Stephen Hawking on this one. Intelligent life would likely have the same faults as a species that we have. Violence, looking down on "lower lifeforms," a propensity to covet resources, etc. Any alien species that came here would probably not be interested in merely zipping around our atmosphere and taking pictures of us. They'd probably have far more nefarious purposes. And a race capable of reaching us would have technology (weapons) so far beyond our understanding that we would be completely powerless to defend ourselves. Independence Day may make a pretty cool 4th of July blockbuster, but it ain't reality. We would be toast in a nanosecond if a violent advanced species wanted us to be.
I think we should listen to Hawking: stop trying to find alien life, and definitely stop trying to send signals to them if they exist. It probably wouldn't turn out well for us if they found us. Don't be the dog that actually catches the car.