[chipdart]

> There are absolutely scads of purported "lights in the sky" style UFO videos taken from mobile phones on the prominent UFO subreddits.

I don't think you got the point.

Before camera phones were ubiquitous, the bulk of reports were very elaborate and fantastic tales where the so-called witness played a central role in the story.

Once everyone started carrying a camera, all we see is questionable light shows taken from a very long distance.

Strange, isn't it?

[Timon3]

Is it strange? I'd say it's fair to assume that potential alien visitors would want their existence to be hidden, or at least not known to the broad population[1]. Working under that assumption, isn't that exactly the behavior you'd expect?

It would be incredibly unlikely for humanity to be the first civilization potential aliens make contact with. They'd probably have a lot of knowledge about interactions with lesser developed civilizations, which would inform the risk they can take based on the developments made. A civilization without broadly available personal cameras would logically allow for much closer interactions.

Let me just add that I don't believe the sightings are real, and I don't believe aliens are visiting earth - I just really dislike using faulty logic to "disprove" this stuff.

[1]: If potential alien visitors wanted their existence to be widely known, it would be easy to do so through conventional news mechanisms (e.g. media or politicians). Since that hasn't happened it leaves two options: there are no alien visitors (the incredibly likely solution), or they exist and want to stay hidden, for whatever reason that may be.

[chipdart]

> Is it strange? I'd say it's fair to assume that potential alien visitors (...)

Just because you personally can't provide an explanation for a photo or a video, which I might add can very well be fake and often are, that does not mean you can fill in the explanation field with nonsense. That's what nutjobs and conspiracy loons do.

[Timon3]

Sure, but that doesn't mean you should argue with faulty logic. That's no better than what nutjobs and conspiracy loons do.

[chipdart]

> Sure, but that doesn't mean you should argue with faulty logic.

The faulty logic is undoubtedly jumping to conclusions that just because you personally don't know the origin of something, that automatically means it's a fantastic story. It just means you don't know. That's it.

That's how you get lens flares being described as aliens.

[Timon3]

Again, I'm not disagreeing. I thought I repeated "I don't believe aliens are visiting us" in my comment often enough to make that clear.

I am only commenting on your point:

> Before camera phones were ubiquitous, the bulk of reports were very elaborate and fantastic tales where the so-called witness played a central role in the story.

> Once everyone started carrying a camera, all we see is questionable light shows taken from a very long distance.

> Strange, isn't it?

This argument is not based in logic. Don't argue against "aliens" and the like by making points that are not based in logic. Find arguments that are based in logic.

[JohnBooty]

No, I get what you're saying.

To be clear, I don't believe we're being visited by aliens.

If we are, though, they're obviously extremely advanced. To put it mildly. So clearly they would know that relatively high quality cameras are now ubiquitous, and adapt their behaviors accordingly if they preferred to remain unknown to the general public.