[thipfan73]

I'm sure this will spark some interesting debate. I was watching something on the History Channel and I'm an Old X-files fan so I have always been fascinated with Area 51. Not so much the alien factor, but the top secret factor.

I think it's just a test ground for new aircraft. I've seen the Stealth Bomber and Stealth Fighter in person and I know if I saw them flying overhead and didn't know what they were, I'd be like WTF?!

I don't believe in Aliens, but my boyfriend does because he thinks he saw a UFO back in his hometown years ago.

I think it's just some kind of unexplained phenomenon or unfamiliar aircraft.

What do you all think?

[The Darkest Canuck]

i've read up on area 51 a bit, not extensively, as i'm only mildly interested in it, but it would seem to me that currently its main function is as a base from which to test aircraft, and i suspect that all the really top secret shit (ie ET shit) have been moved from area 51 to a different top secret military base in Alaska, where it is a ll out of sight out of mind.

[robert goulet]

Can I vote for "All of the above" However, don't kid yourself, there are many more places like this in the States....and dare I say it...Canada too??? Me thinks yes.
Goulet!!!

[Stephen Dame]

When I was a kid, I was big into the UFO theories. Then I read, after the USG released their "weather balloons" explanation, something Christopher Hitchens wrote. He discovered that the USG was testing Stealth Bomber prototypes as early as 1959

Imagine if in 1959, when your TV is still black and white and your milk is still delivered in a truck, that a sleek triangle floats silently over your house. What are you gunna think?

The atmosphere of the Cold War explains the secrecy, and the fact that the USG tests planes 30 years before they become public knowledge explains the UFO's.

Just think, the stuff they're testing today (And I doubt they use Los Alamos anymore) is the stuff that'll be on postage stamps in 2035.

Aliens? Ha! Aircraft.

[fingernailsonhull]

Why is there no "Big stupid conspiracy theory" choice?

[The Horrible Esthete]

Look, you silly things, you do not have any of our spacecra- oh. Wait. Uhm...nevermind! Aircraft! Yes, that's it - top secret aircraft....

[theAryanTwang]

I'm way too much of an X-phile to pick anything but ALIENS!

[Lizard King]

When I was a kid, I was big into the UFO theories. Then I read, after the USG released their "weather balloons" explanation, something Christopher Hitchens wrote. He discovered that the USG was testing Stealth Bomber prototypes as early as 1959

Imagine if in 1959, when your TV is still black and white and your milk is still delivered in a truck, that a sleek triangle floats silently over your house. What are you gunna think?

The atmosphere of the Cold War explains the secrecy, and the fact that the USG tests planes 30 years before they become public knowledge explains the UFO's.

Just think, the stuff they're testing today (And I doubt they use Los Alamos anymore) is the stuff that'll be on postage stamps in 2035.

Aliens? Ha! Aircraft.

As much as I loved X-Files (and Scully!) I have to agree with Dame here, nothing but a bunch of cowenkydinks :lol:

[mikeysaint]

wright patt in Dayton is suposed to have secret underground labs. But I think it was Aliens.

[thipfan73]

I know for a fact the military can be sneaky. When they closed the Air Base back home I found out that it was a nuclear weapons base and there were missle silos all over the area where I grew up. Mysteriously those silos became empty overnight and nobody saw anything.

I always knew it was the "Moscow" base and if there was an attack, we would have been the first to respond and maybe the first hit. We were on the same parallel as Moscow. I also knew it was the third alternate emergency runway for the Space Shuttle because the runway is so damned huge, but nuclear weapons?! We were a "refueling base" after the fighter jets moved. I should have known better! :wink:

BTW, me growing up around nuclear weapons. Hmm..I think that explains a lot :lol:

Also, about the "it's a big conspiracy" Isn't "other, 'the man' is keeping something from us" enough?

:lol:

[K-Town Lassie]

I've lived on Air Force bases both in Canda and Europe. I have to agree with Stephen Dame here. Much of what people see are drones and other forms of classified aircraft.

There is one thing I don't understand and I've never heard the believers explain. Until they do, I'm an agnostic in the area of extraterrestrials. If they are so advanced that they can transcend time and space, (some people even theorize that they have conquered multi-dimensional travel), so gifted that they can keep their existance hidden for years, so intelligent that they can kidnap people and perform experiments on them with out the subjects even knowing, --- if they are sooooo omnipotent--- then one questions exists. When flying at night, why do they need "headlights"? Seriously, if they are as secretive about their visits to Earth as everyone claims, then what's with the bright lights? Shouldn't a "super-spieces" have infared or radar or something? What do they need the lights for? And don't say it's to freak people out, because remember, they are trying to remain covert.

cratch:

[Stephen Dame]

When flying at night, why do they need "headlights"? Seriously, if they are as secretive about their visits to Earth as everyone claims, then what's with the bright lights? Shouldn't a "super-spieces" have infared or radar or something? What do they need the lights for? And don't say it's to freak people out, because remember, they are trying to remain covert.

cratch:

Maybe they're telling us to turn on our high beams.

[K-Town Lassie]

When flying at night, why do they need "headlights"? Seriously, if they are as secretive about their visits to Earth as everyone claims, then what's with the bright lights? Shouldn't a "super-spieces" have infared or radar or something? What do they need the lights for? And don't say it's to freak people out, because remember, they are trying to remain covert.

cratch:

Maybe they're telling us to turn on our high beams.

Hmmm, never looked at it from that point of view. But, one would argue, isn't that what the crop circles are for? .....

:lol:

[The Horrible Esthete]

Maybe they're telling us to turn on our high beams.

:lol:

whooooooo!.....still laughing at that. Author slash comedian, Dame?

Anyway, as we know, there have been a wealth of elaborate but unsubstantiated sightings, which probably are still outnumbered by outright hoaxes....but no real proof of alien visitation has ever come to surface publicly. No highly-conspicuous, pulsating, super-bright objects are ever reported hovering in over Long Island or the Miracle Mile.

That said, there remains the possibility that they do visit and deliberately choose remote or rural areas to enter the atmosphere under the cloak of darkness if they are to attempt such a thing. And beyond that realm of possibility, we have no basis for speculation upon the logistics or motives behind their visit. The feds may have seized and stored a harpooned alien craft, and have desperately cloaked all evidence to prevent any possible resulting disruption to human society. Who knows. And who cares, i suppose, besides that farmer from South Dakota who is about to be probed by a patrol of Nyak-nyuks from the Third Astral Plane.

I would bet all of human existence that we are not alone in this universe, but that doesn't mean that anyone else should care enough to visit. Maybe they're sightseeing....and maybe we shouldn't concern ourselves until they put one down at JFK or something....