UFOs more respected as a concept in mainsteam culture?

What would it take for the notions of UFOs and alien abductions to be taken more seriously in the eyes of the general public, short of aliens appearing above major cities waving huge signs saying 'YES, WE DO EXIST. NOW GIVE THE CONSPIRACY NUTS SOME COOKIES'?
 
Well more people believe in aliens today than ever have, however how to get the majority to believe they've visited us is hard.

Maybe a few Roswell style controversies each decade and more tests of wacky Nazi planes by both sides all throughout the Cold War instead of just the forties/fifties.
 
Maybe if you got rid of the real wingnuts, as some are quite logical sounding, but the wingnuts degrade the whole thing.
 
Theres a difference between UFO's and aliens, for example I saw a UFO and I imagine theres a perfectly logical explanation for it; however I couldn't identify it as a plane etc so it remains unidentified
 
No debunking campaign in the 1950s-60s would be a start: some of Blue Book's "explanations" were so laughable that Johnny Carson once said "they'd do better if they picked out of a hat." And admitting a USAF instruction in 1959 from the AF Chief of Staff that said flat out "UFOs are Serious Business to the Air Force." (it was classified SECRET) And admitting that some of the "Unknowns" could be something not of this earth, but "we're trying to find out." And having investigations run jointly by the military and a civilian space agency (depending on the country): reports that may affect national security being handled by the military, all others being dealt with by the space agency: this happens in France IIRC. So in the U.S., the AAF, then the USAF would investigate sightings by military personnel, regardless of service branch, and NACA (the precursor to NASA) handles reports by civilians, including airline and private pilots. Then NASA would take over that in 1959. In the latter category of reports, considered by many to be the most compelling due to the nature of the witnesses (pilots, aircrew, air traffic controllers, radar operators) the FAA would assist. The USAF actually ran a serious investigation during 1947-49 and 1951-53, but then Blue Book went the other way. I'll leave with this comment from a memo sent by LTGEN Nathan Twining, Chief of the Air Materiel Command (Wright Field, OH) to the CG, AAF on 23 Sep 1947, the day before the AAF became the USAF. "The phenomenon is real and not something visionary or ficticious." (Twining later became Chairman of the JCS in the late '50s)
 
Well, methinks you could have a few things go differently:
1] Not have sightings of UFOs being associated with crazy loners or scam artists/attention seekers.
2] Maybe no wave of 50s Alien B-movies. In the public imagination, that put Aliens up with supernatural beasties like Nessie,Vampires,Werewolf,mummies.
3]More TV reports or public investigations into Pilots, Policemen etc's UFO encounters. Basically more credible witnesses.
4]Alien abduction is almost certainly just a byproduct of Sleep paralysis, but if you really want people to believe, I suppose you have something happen to delay reasearch in the field making alien abduction a mysterious phenonmena rather than easily explainable at this point in time.
5] More official support in investigation into UfO sightings and more actual unexplained cases. 95 per cent are easily explained and the 5 per cent that remain unexplained usually do so due to a simple lack of information from witnesses.
 
I'll leave with this comment from a memo sent by LTGEN Nathan Twining, Chief of the Air Materiel Command (Wright Field, OH) to the CG, AAF on 23 Sep 1947, the day before the AAF became the USAF. "The phenomenon is real and not something visionary or ficticious." (Twining later became Chairman of the JCS in the late '50s)


I'll trump that with Admiral Lord Hill Norton talking about the Bentwaters incident.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] In that case, one is bound to assume that Colonel Halt and all his men were hallucinating. My position is perfectly clear — either of those explanations is of the utmost defense interest. It has been reported and claimed — and I, myself, have raised it to ministers at the Defense Ministry in this country — that nothing they have been informed about regarding UFOs is of defense interest. Surely, to any sensible person, either of those explanations cannot fail to be of defense interest. That the Colonel of an American Air Force Base in Suffolk and his military men are hallucinating when there are nuclear-armed aircraft on the base — this must be of defense interest.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And, if indeed what he says took place, did take place — and why on Earth should he make it up — then, surely, the entry of a vehicle from outer space (and certainly not manmade) to a defense base in this country also cannot fail to be of defense interest. It simply isn’t any good for our ministers — and the Ministry of Defense in particular — to say that nothing took place that December night in Suffolk, or that it is not of defense interest. It simply isn’t true. [/FONT][/FONT]
 
Respected? A bunch of conspiracy nuts with no solid evidence. Yes, I have no doubt that they believed they saw something, but can they prove what it was? It's not what you know, but what you can prove.
 
Actually, the percentage of unexplaineds varies, though the worldwide average is 15%. The lowest I've seen is in Australia (The RAAF had 4% unexplained while they were actively investigating), while the highest figure is the U.S. in the 1952 wave (23% for the year, but May-August had 28% unexplained). And the unexplaineds are not "lack of information from witnesses." Often, there's very compelling evidence (landing traces-NOT crop circles, radar tracking-either civilian or military radar, photos from credible sources, and the caliber of the eyewitnesses-police, military personnel, pilots, air traffic controllers, and other credible witnesses. The AF's chief of operations in 1952, MGEN John Sanford, said at a press conference after the famous Washington, D.C. radar-visual sightings (sightings by airline and military pilots were verified by ATC radar, and involved jet chases by F-94 interceptors) "We have reports by credible observers of relatively incredible things." That's the most any military officer (or other public figure) has been willing to go. Even the AF's scientific consultant on Blue Book, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, felt there was something going on, as he went from skeptic to believer (he was an astronomer at Northwestern Univ. in Chicago), and after Blue Book closed in '69, an open critic of the Air Force, and he was that way until he died in 1986. It wasn't because of one specific case, though he said there were quite a few that got to him, but he got the impression that "all these people aren't crazy." And the casual dismissial of reports by credible witnesses (some of whom were the AF's finest-like SAC bomber and missile crews) only fueled his building anger. He was also upset that many of the "interesting" reports didn't come to Blue Book, but went somewhere else.
 
Reagan had a UFO sighting while Governor of California in 1974. He was flying from Sacramento to Burbank for some kind of function, when the pilot of his Learjet asked him to come up to the cockpit. There was an oval-shaped object flying alongside the Lear (this was at 24,000 feet), and was maintaining position along the left wing. The copilot saw it, as did the Governor's Press Secretary. The sighting lasted for about 2-3 min., and then the object simply accelerated away and disappeared. A footnote to this is that when Steven Spielberg screened E.T. at the White House for the President, his wife, cabinet officers and their families, Reagan reportedly turned to Spielberg and said "You'd be surprised how close to the truth this is. And half of those who know are in this room."

Another USAAF document is an air intelligence report for the Air Defense Command dated 10 August 1947. It details some twelve incidents, all from pilots, aircrews, or air traffic controllers. In part, it reads: "This 'flying saucer' business is no joke. Something is really flying around. (emphasis in original) The most common shape is that of a disc or saucer, with the average size being reported as about that of a C-54 or Constellation. Well kept formation flights of three to nine objects have been described in six of the reports."

And if you're interested in what the USAF felt as of mid '52, here's a link to a Life magazine article about UFOs-which was written with full cooperation of the USAF. http://www.nicap.org/life52.htm (this was published before the famous Washington, D.C., radar-visual events of 19/20 and 26/27 Jul 52) In the D.C. case, Harry Barnes, the senior controller at Washington National AP, felt that what he and his men were seeing on their scopes were real targets, not false echoes caused by weather or equipment malfunction. He also felt that the unknowns, whatever they were, were listening in on his instructions to fighter pilots as the F-94s came in: whenever the fighters appeared and were given their initial vectors to interept, the unknowns vanished off the scopes. When the fighters left, they reappeared.
 
How strange, that as sensor information has improved, and the ability to record things visually has become ubiquitous among the population thanks to cell-phone cameras and the like, that such un-ambiguous sightings have diminished.
 
Uber_Amoeba said:
How strange, that as sensor information has improved, and the ability to record things visually has become ubiquitous among the population thanks to cell-phone cameras and the like, that such un-ambiguous sightings have diminished.

Two possible (and possibly ludicrous) answers:
1) That's because those aliens are watching us, so they already know about that and avoid exposure as much as possible. :D
2) In closer encounters, electronic gear tends to fail functioning (at least according to the respective witnesses, although this effect intriguingly doesn't affect airplanes in flight) :rolleyes:

Although to the sightings: just a few weeks ago, when a shooting star burst into several fragments above germany there were quite some pictures taken (and it made it even in the news)
 
There have been some reports from recent years of people having interference with their cell phones during UFO encounters, ranging from being unable to get a cell phone signal to not being able to use a cell phone camera. For convinence, here's the categories of UFO sightings developed by the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek (first director of the Center for UFO Studies, and the former scientific consultant to Project Blue Book):

Nocturnal Light (NL): your typical light-in-the sky. Most can be readily explained (aircraft, meteors, other astronomical causes, lighted balloons, etc.), but about 10% have no explanation, due to the behavior of the light and/or the description of the light. Some of the sightings from the Belgian wave of 1990 are in this category, but others are in the R-V or CE-1.

Daylight Disc (DD): What most people think of when they hear the term "flying saucer." A structured object, often a disc, is seen in daylight hours. However, the category extends to any shaped object seen in daylight. (cigar, oval, egg, etc.) The Kenneth Arnold sighting from 24 June 1947, the 15 Aug 1950 Great Falls, MT film, or the Tremonton, UT film from 1952 are examples.

Radar-Visual (R-V): The most difficult to explain. A witness, either on the ground or in an aircraft, sees an object and there is radar confirmation via either ground or airborne radar. Examples of unexplained R-Vs include the famous Washington National sightings in 1952, the Lakenheath-Bentwaters Radar-Visuals in 1956, and the RB-47 case in 1957, and the famous Tehran jet chase from 1976.

Close Encounter of the First Kind (CE-1): A structured object is seen by the witness(es) at a distance of 500 ft. or less, but no other effects are noticed. An example of this would be the chase by three Ohio lawmen of a UFO for 85 miles from Ohio into Pennsylvania on 14 April 1966, at speeds exceeding 105 MPH, the "Incident at Exeter" (NH) on 3 Sep 1965, and many of the sightings from both the Hudson Valley (NY) wave from 1983-85, and the Belgian wave of 1990.

Close Encounter of the Second Kind (CE-2): A structured object is seen, and that object either leaves evidence behind, or otherwise interacts with its surroundings. (landing marks, interference with TV, radio, and with vehicle engines; also some physical effect on the witness-some have been burned, or suffered nausea, for example) Examples include the Val Johnson encounter in Minnesota in 1979 (the witness suffered damage to his sheriff's dept. patrol car, and a mild case of "welder's burns" to his eyes), and the 1980 Cash-Landrum encounter outside Houston in December, 1980, and a famous landing at Trens-en-Provence, France in 1981.

Close Encounter of the Third Kind (CE-3): Besides the object, entities are observed. This category does not include reported abductions. The entities are often seen outside the craft or going inside/outside. Some reports do not involve landings, but the occupants are seen thru domes or windows on the craft. The famous Soccoro (NM) landing on 24 Apr 1964, and the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter on 21-22 Aug 1955 are examples.

Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind (CE-4): Abduction of the witness. Sometimes the abductions occur only once (the famous Betty and Barney Hill case from 1961, or the Travis Walton case from 1975), or the person is abducted on a number of occasions (see Budd Hopkins' book Intruders) .
 
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