Last week I posted a CNN article noting that UFOs had been sighted by Mexican Airforce pilots. However, it didn't take the unbelievers long to explain away the sighting.
UFOs are, I think, an interesting subject. Probably, most of what is written is sensational and highly fictional, but it seems that people really do occassionally witness odd phenomena that doesn't appear to be explicable by recourse to ordinary channels of interpretation. I know two people, both of whom I believe to be credible, that have seen what they describe as UFOs.
The explanations I have heard for UFOs are as follows:
1. Alien aircraft
2. Experimental government aircraft
3. Rare weather phenomena
4. Demonic aircraft
I don't give any credence to 1 or 2, because I don't believe in aliens (they simply have no place in my conceptual framework), and because I don't believe the government is sufficiently competent to develop any sort of aircraft capable of the standard UFO flight abilities (i.e., rapid reversals of direction, dissappearance/reappearance, etc.) while keeping said development fully confidential.
Much more likely is 3. As in the above mentioned case, this explanation seems to make sense. My father has a book describing the many possible types of weather phenomena, and there are numerous events that I have never seen, such that should I see them, I would find them highly unusual.
4 is kind of weird. I heard a fairly disreputible but interesting speaker (Kent Hovind) say that UFOs could be means of Satanic/demonic transportation. His rationale went something like this: (a) demons exist because the Bible says so, (b) unlike God, Satan and his angels cannot be everywhere at the same time, (c) because they're not omnipresent, the demonic entities have to travel from one location to another, (d) they could use some sort of air/space craft to travel around, (e) these aircraft could be the basis of many UFO sightings.
Strange. Strange, but interesting.
Posted by paul at May 17, 2004 11:47 AM | TrackBack