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Interest in the UFO phenomenon has been growing ever since the late forties when stories of strange flying objects accompanying WW2 aircraft were circulated and particularly after the press picked up on the account by businessman Kenneth Arnold in 1947 of a formation of nine brightly colored crescent shaped crafts seen from his light aircraft as they flew at speeds in excess of 1200 knots. They were described by Mr. Arnold as flying like saucers skipping across water - and this gave birth to the name flying saucer.
As a result of mankind being naturally war-like and afraid of the unknown, and with Hollywood always seeking to produce more dramatic and scary films, soon flying saucers became the subject of doom-laden and mostly poorly made films presenting flying saucers as the vessels of terrifying invaders from space intending to destroy us and devour our natural resources before moving on to their next victims in a nearby solar system. Many of these films have ranked alongside the lower quality productions in the science fiction and horror film genres, resulting today in an attempt at a serious discussion about UFOs and extra-terrestrial life being met with giggles and mockery. So any serious research and scientific study of the UFO phenomena has been very limited in scope.
It is perhaps ironic that millions of dollars of private money and a NASA grant were given to S.E.T.I (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) results in a search of deep space for signs of intelligent life, while all the time a large piece of the ET jigsaw appears to be silently going about its business right under our noses here on Earth. S.E.T.I, perhaps understandably, distances itself from the UFO phenomena, preferring to ignore the hundreds of credible sightings of strange crafts by sane and professional people. This denial of the UFO phenomenon reminds the writer of a Christmas pantomime where the lead character is shouting "what?" and "where?" and the audience is shouting "behind you!”
To accept the argument that alien visitors might just be going about their business here on Earth on a daily basis then we first have to consider the proposition of there actually being other life beyond our own little planet. The vastness of the universe is difficult for us emerging Earthlings to grasp because the numbers are simply too large to visualize. But let us try. Our own galaxy the Milky Way contains between 200 and 400 billion stars and perhaps a trillion planets. Outside our own galaxy, there are billions of galaxies each containing billions of stars and trillions of planets. It is plain silly to believe, or prefer to believe, that our little planet is unique in its ability to spawn and harbor life and even if we assume that a minuscule percentage of planets have favorable conditions to life (as we know it) then there must be millions of planets on which intelligent life has developed and flourished - albeit separated by mind-boggling distances. It is not within the scope of this article to develop this point further but interested readers should research the Drake Equation.
What are the chances that some of these intelligent life forms have visited us and continue to do so? Firstly, a bit of humility is required. Essentially, when it comes to the universe, its origins, its future, life-starting conditions, alternative life-starting conditions, extra-terrestrial life, and advanced ET technology, then let us be honest with ourselves, we know next to nothing. We have only come along very recently in the life of our planet and our scientific discoveries and developments have only really taken place during the last 300 years or so. What can we know of the technology and abilities of ET civilizations that have won the ability to develop scientifically over periods of thousands or even millions of years?
