[commakozzi]

I'm a pilot, i know what things look like in the air from varying distances, balloons, other planes, helicopters, stray plastic sheet, lasers, whatever. I'm also not a believer in supernatural things and i hope aliens are not visiting our planet without our knowledge and/or permission. However, (here we go): I have seen an object in the sky seemingly being intelligently controlled & doing things that we have no current ability to do or understand (as far as we know) and these maneuvers would absolutely turn the occupant (if there was one) into a warm liquid. it had a single kind of unnaturally bright (but not blinding for some reason) blueish light and it just danced in the sky like physics just didn't matter at all. I and 4 other friends of mine watched it for about 3-5 mins until it turned toward space and zipped away like it was nothing. This was clearly a large object, about the size of a fighter jet.

Based on that experience and my interpretation of my senses, I feel like i personally know for a fact that SOMETHING is flying around in our skies that we currently have no inventory for (that is publicly known at least) and to be absolutely prudent i would want to investigate that object and understand what it is, where it came from and who made it (i also want to fly it) and that would be an absolute priority. It's not that there's nothing in the skies of interest. There is something up there that people are seeing that's not being misidentified (it's not being identified at all!), but it's a real object. My guess: advanced american drone with a new power source and propulsion system that the general public (including research scientists) didn't know was possible. Other than that, sure maybe aliens, if our understanding of the universe is just completely flawed and FTL is actually possible.

I'm not here to try to convince anyone (maybe i am subconsciously, but whatever). It's just incredibly frustrating because i absolutely hate religion and any other belief systems that might promote a lack of critical thinking, and it looks like i'm presenting a lack of critical thinking here. Yes, i do not know what it was, but I'm also an educated engineer who happens to be a pilot. I completely understand that humans have faulty perception and probably even more faulty brains, but I also understand when something is an object versus when it's of some other quality (gas, solid, etc.). I'm increasingly annoyed when i see the entire subject seem to get dismissed simply because there are so many bad reports and bad information.

I agree somewhat with the premise here but also, if there are aliens visiting our planet from another solar system and they just got here today, then what kind of action could humans take anyway? These things would probably be able to reshape reality at that point, idk.

[micah94]

I don't think we will ever understand what you saw if we continue to cling to our view of what reality actually is. I think it's unlikely whatever it is originated in some distant galaxy far far away (aliens, little-green men, spacecraft, etc). I think it's something fundamental and it's here on this planet and I don't think that sits well with people. Like many things, we have to look within rather than what's out there.

[kcplate]

> My guess: advanced american drone with a new power source and propulsion system that the general public (including research scientists) didn't know was possible.

This to me is the most likely explanation and no doubt the military and government certainly benefits from people attributing advanced terrestrial technology to extraterrestrial sources.

[Animats]

That's why we need enough cameras looking upward to get aerial phenomena like that imaged from multiple viewpoints. Then most of the ambiguity goes away.

[impossiblefork]

I like the idea that accounts like yours are due to a deception system to create false radar echoes for confusing incoming ballistic missiles, with these being tested now and then so that they are confirmed to work.

I don't think this is true though. It doesn't fit all the details and I don't think the lasers to do it have existed long enough, if they even exist now.

[throwaway73419]

> Other than that, sure maybe aliens, if our understanding of the universe is just completely flawed and FTL is actually possible.

It could be unmanned probes sent at lower speeds. There could be alien civilizations that thinks more long term than what we do. Perhaps they even learned to extend their lives indefinitely or can hibernate for centuries

[wrp]

The description sounds like ball lightning. Were there features you observed that would eliminate that possibility?

[akomtu]

Attributing such things to another solar system is a fallacy that everything that's out there can be explained by the little that we already know. It's no different than when people of past ages explained stars as little holes in the sky dome: it was simply the limit of their understanding. It's a comfortable self-delusion. Their origin can be as well under ground in our planet in some unimaginable to us way. Even appealing to the logic: if they built a flying thing to which laws of physics don't seem to matter, why would they live like us, on a surface of some rock in deep space?

[commakozzi]

Completely agreed. The null hypothesis on that has always fallen on extraterrestrials, assuming we know everything about every single cubic meter on earth, which is anthropomorphically flawed. I never really speculate on what it was, exactly, because i don't have enough data. My first assumption is man-made, not extra-terrestrial or otherwise. It could have been ball lightning or some deception system for false radar return as someone mentioned earlier, but this thing had size to it. it wasn't a reflection. I've seen (vary rare video) examples of ball lightning also, but they don't move like what i saw.