Sign, sign

Everywhere a sign 💜

“I never did find out the story behind it.”

Darn!

I don’t have anything to post but agree Jupidupi’s got a good one.

Great topic, petalique!

A hot summer afternoon in Lac la Biche, AB

My resident white albino squirrel made a nest feet from my sunroom high on my Atlas cedar tree. She gave birth to two babies, a miniature albino like mom and a grey one. These mixed marriages.,,,lol

I have to to some chores today. I read over your revelations quickly and am in awe. Holy cow! I want to comment and will do so soon. You have fired up my curiosity something wicked. I just knew I was not the only one seeing things and with stories to tell.

Any photos ofthe man falling from the sky? Why? From where did he come? I hope he’s okay.

Well, besides bears all over the front and back yard since wildfires burned their habitat down back in the 2010's, and last summer a mama bear breaking into the house, which caused police to arrive riffles drawn, staking out the inside and outside of my house...Not my favorite experience. The oddity of that still rings too often in my mind. The things you don't know will happen that day when you get up in the morning.

One day many years ago, while at work at my salon, Peter Cetera (from the band Chicago) punched a hole in the wall. His stylist was late and not even in the salon yet, as usual.

Peter wasn't having it that day. Pow! Fist through wall. Then he left, slamming the door and stomping down the stairwell to exit. Never to come back. It was so odd that someone would take their frustration out on a wall when they knew full well their stylist was a brilliant, yet always tardy misfit on his best day. Didn't even mail a check in to cover repairs! In hindsight, we should have framed the hole and gave it a museum title below, that read "Peter Cetera cir 1989"

Great topic Petal! Enjoying the stories.

I don't know if this is unusual or not.

I had just returned to civilian life from active duty training in the Army, having been magically transformed into a soldier by completing boot camp and then school to become a combat medic. I was in college and back working part time at a grocery store.

The store was on a busy street and sideways to it, so that the front door was by the sidewalk and the parking lot on the side. I was stocking shelves not far from the door when a loud screech of tires could be heard followed by the loud nose of a car impact. I continued what I was doing for more than 5, less than 10 minutes when someone came in yelling for a doctor or anyone who knew first aid.

I went out to see if I could help. A large sedan had hit the passenger side of a VW bus crossing the large street on a side street. I could see as I approached that the driver's door was open and that the driver had been knocked out and as far as the gutter on the far side of the street. I knew not to move him immediately, so I reached down to feel for a pulse on his neck. There was no pulse and I felt no respiration when I put a hand on his chest.

People were running around in panic, several yelling that someone should call for an ambulance. I quietly told a few people that an ambulance wasn't needed.

I think what happened was that he hit the curb headfirst and perhaps sustained a fatal concussion or broke his neck. But being only a medic and neither a doctor or a nurse, I couldn't be sure. I knew that my first aid training couldn't help him so I went back inside to work.

I was on a train trip from Prince Rupert, BC to Prince George, BC. It is about a 12 hour trip through rainforest, alpine meadows, and the Rocky Mountains. A young lady boarded in Prince Rupert and slept through the entire trip except for the last ten minutes. Just before pulling into the Prince George station she sat up, put some lipgloss on, and was good to go.

I wasn’t surprised that she slept through the entire trip as she could have done the trip several times before and the scenery was old hat to her, but I was amused at her many sleeping positions, and how she knew exactly when to wake up.

She actually looked like a million bucks when she disembarked.

(((elmer)))

I was out sunning and reading on the back patio. The house was surrounded by 80 acres of lawn, field, and pond. I heard drones of cicadas.A shadow appeared over my head, on a perfectly clear day. I looked up. A blimp was moving overhead! Now, I’d seen a blimp before, but not so low, and so directly over my head! It was surreal, and it just slowly moved across the lawn, over the lake, and on across the highway. Truly surreal.

This happened a couple of years ago when I was reading on the beach and happened to look up.

I was out in my garden years ago when I was living up valley and twice I saw enormous transport airplanes flying below tree level following the river. Impossibly slow and totally silent. We have a strong military presence here on the coast and over flights are frequent but this was not the usual. It is hard to see how they stayed in the air.

Thanks rob, I was and am fine about experiencing the result of that fellow's bad luck. No later bad memories or nightmares.

While many folks get squeamish with blood and guts stuff, many others don't. I don't.

patriicia, military transport planes have oversized wings to handle heavy loads AND to fly at slow speeds. Many by design can land on very short runways, some even shorter than what a tiny (by comparison) executive jet requires. The short runway capability, required for operational flexibility, is attained by designing planes to develop enough lift to fly, and thus take off (and land), at low speeds.

Edit- I found a video. Scroll down to the middle of the page

https://wakeupwyo.com/watch-militarys-biggest-plane-lands-on-tiny-cheyenne-runway/

I saw a couple of sandhill cranes in my next door neighbor's yard yesterday. Google pics if you've never seen because they really are quite stunning. They don't usually wander into residential areas so this was very cool to see.

Trigger Warning (Possibly) Infant

..……

. … .

”Look at this!” he said, as he swept me into a dark janitor’s closet.

In one of his arms, he held a newly born infant; in the other a flashlight.

He place the flashlight against the quiet infants head and turned it on. The light passed through the infant’s skull, fully illuminating a red orange uniform sphere. The infant had very little or no brain.

I’d never seen anything like that before and the closest it came to was the flashlight play as children — transilluminating hands, mouth and ears. The viewing was quickly over, the door opened. The infant and the Dr. S. moved on.

That was something I’ve never forgotten, but think about from time to time and especially with recent court rulings.

Leaving out the many gross or tragic things I've seen at work.

I was once standing in the middle of a butterfly migration - Painted Ladies - when I was living in San Diego. They were flying only about 8 -10 feet off the ground; when they came to a building (and me!) they would rise en masse, flow over it, then drop back to the lower level. I don't recall that they made any sound although there had to be thousands of them .

Another time I was out for an evening walk, about 3-4 miles inland from the ocean, when I looked west and saw a rocket flying north to south, parallel to the coast, and appearing level to the ground and not so high in the sky. It was like looking at a rocket in an old movie - flames shooting from the rear, and waves (the best word I can think of) pulsing around it from the nose. No noise. It seemed to be traveling rather slowly as it went across the sky. It had to be very far west of shore to be soundless and appear so low in the sky, but it still looked as large as a 747 would be on the ground. I assumed it was launched from Vandenberg, never saw anything about it on the news.

I also saw a ufo when I was younger. Was looking out the window towards the street in front of my neighbors house. Saw a large silver thing floating at the end of the driveway. It was shaped like a circle with dome top. I ran outside and saw it take off really fast down the street and disappeared

A couple of times I have seen a hive of bees with thousands of bees flying all over our 2.5 acres.

In terms of horrifying thi gs, i saw a woman get run over by an rv. It was awful. Since I was a witness, i heard from her lawyer. She was alive but horribly injured, as you can imagine. The accident was sadly her fault. She was cutting through three lanes of traffic that was stopped for a red light, between cars. There was no way for the driver to see her.

For something weird, I saw what I thought was a naked woman at a garden center. In fact she was totally clothed in a body suit that was the same tone as her skin. She even had a long braid that looked like it was the crack in her derriere.

raee, reminded me of this. On two separate occasions, I saw a jet being refueled by another plane as it flew over, way high up of course. At first I was dumfounded until I realized what was happening.

Schoolhouse my brother did that when he was in the Air Force

Well, the accident mentioned above reminded me of a couple incidents last year and on my road trip out West. The second one we were in I think Kansas and near Kansas City. We were on a divided highway when a car came up in the dirt/grass to the right of us at a high rate of speed. At the turn off they just went flying through that area and went around the cars that were ahead of us. Dirt and debris went flying everywhere and they sped off. I thought for sure they would be wrecked somewhere up the road.

I need to quit traveling with my friend, because the other incident happened with her in the car too. I think I posted this after it happened. We were heading down south and on the interstate coming into to Lexington when a little blue car came by us swerving in and out of traffic. He almost hit multiple cars, that's how bad it was. He wasn't going super fast and I slowed down to keep away from him. My friend called 911 to report it and we followed this person all the way to the Richmond exit, they were still heading toward Lexington. Before we went separate ways and while the 911 person was still on the phone, they hit the concrete barrier but kept going. Crazy. Never saw a cop. I'm sure we were the only ones calling it in. I hope someone else got their license plate number but I wasn't going to get close enough to try and read it.

Here's something unusual I just saw - I wrote a response in the thread about the guy with problems at the girlie pharmacy (!!) and when I clicked the submit button, the thread had vanished. Just like that into thin air. A supernatural phenomenon on a par with that those of you think you saw when you describe glimpsing UFOs.

Kath, a few hours ago my wife and I were driving the right lane of a two lane road and I was telling my wife about Instant Karma road rage videos on you tube where a cop sees and gets the enraged driver. In my mirror I see a truck coming up like a bullet in the left lane and got right on the bumper of a newer charger a little ahead of me. Suddenly red flashing light go off inside the charger so the truck backs off and then the charger which was an unmarked police car pulls in front of me and slows down. The truck passes and the cop pulls him over, instant Karma and we loved it.

I'd like to see a UFO some day, they do exist. I want to meet the owners, tour the craft and go for a ride. When the universe is estimated to be 94 billion light years in size by Nasa, consisting of an estimated 2 trillion galaxies, and our own milky way galaxy is estimated to have 800 billion to 2 trillion planets, who is more likely to be correct, those who say UFO's don't exist, and those who believe they do? I know where my money is, and know the universe doesn't revolve around me.

Obviously UFO's exist. Unidentified is what that means. The jury is still out on space aliens though. I believe in space aliens but I dont see what would bring them here.

Thanks for the explanation Elmer. I grew up in an Air Force family. It was the eerie silence that I found so amazing. I have worked in Death Valley which has multiple military flight areas around and the pilots loved to fly down the syncline of the valley-illegally of course. They flew all sorts of experimental weird things but none of them were silent.

I am a non-believer concerning so-called paranormal, faith-based and metaphysical notions that have no demonstrated basis or proof of existance or true reality.

An entertaining fellow with unimpeachable scientific credentials is astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. He has a wonderful way of giving simple explanations to difficult concepts. On this topic, his explanation is like this: " The first letter of UFO stands for Unidentified. If something is unidentified, stop there. That doesn't lead to "It's unidenfied, so it must be this....."

Here's a video. Start at the 35 second mark and it's just a few minutes to hear what he has to say on this topic.

" I want to meet the owners, tour the craft and go for a ride."

I think I'd want to check out their motives for visiting prior to going for a ride.

Very, very cool. The Twilight Zone was underappreciated in its time, the stories were very clever. I'd love to see many episodes again.

Yippee, I looked and found it's on Amazon Prime via Freevee. Thanks for the idea that led me to find it!

Youtube has clips and perhaps episodes too. Here's a clever and amusing short scene about aliens:

I like Tyson very much too and agree with his summary concerning reports of lights in the night sky (encounters of the 1st kind), that's not evidence of aliens. Dr Allen Hynek was also an Astronomer who worked with Project Blue Book for almost 20 years investigating thousands of eye witness reports and he created the categories of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd types of encounters. Nothing can be determined from the 1st & 2nd (lights at night, daylight disks, landing marks, etc.) Where as the 3rd type involve encounters with the Aliens (Barney & Betty Hill, Travis Walton, Charles Hickson & Calvin Parker, and countless others) many of which remain unexplained today. For Tyson to say that when you're abducted to just take some selfie pictures with the alien or grab something to bring back as evidence when the alien isn't looking is pretty lame, and he knows better.

Have you dreamed you could fly? You could soar and see for miles?

When I was a girl, vacationing in Florida with my DM, a family friend arranged for us to go up in the Goodyear blimp. Once they turned off the engines, there was complete silence. It felt like flying, hanging out over the ocean and looking at the horizon, then down at reefs and large fish.

vgkng, I heard Tyson's comments about grabbing a souvenir or taking a selfie as being very intentionally sarcastic. And dismissive. And probably motivated as a bit of a chuckle at the expense of people he considers to be foolishly gullible from his perspective of rigor and the scientific method as the way to find facts. The absence of which philosophically is just that, no facts = nothing there.

I remember hearing/reading about Hynek some time ago and recall he was thought of by his peers as more than a bit of a crackpot. An extremist whose views were not taken seriously by others in his field.

I currently know and have known more than a few academics over the years in a variety of fields. Perhaps you have too. Having a few loose screws or being eccentric and off the wall, extreme in a variety of ways, is nothing if not something to be expected.

Hynek was no kook no matter what others thought of him, he worked with the US Air Force during the 50's&60's as a skeptic doing his best to debunk ufo reports but after many years of working on the project he was convinced that there is more to it than hoaxes or mis-identification of these sightings. During those years (before the revelations of AATIP) it was easy to think it was all nonsense.

Today NASA has involved 16 respected scientists in their fields to work with the pentagon to help identify what their pilots, radar operators, and gun camera recording depict. Even these 16 have voiced their concerns of the stigma associated with the phenomena as they do their investigations, so for Hynek it was no different and even worse back then.

Any scientist worth their salt is wise to keep this topic at arm's length and Tyson is no different. Reputations can be and have been too easily smeared by those who express an interest in it and a very cautious Tyson is well aware of that fact. As for "evidence", nothing short of a pound of alien flesh would convince most scientists, otherwise the topic will continue to be relegated to jokes and doubt.

Personally I've never seen anything that I would consider to be an alien craft, but like Dr Hynek and many others like him I cannot just simply explain away all of the eye witness accounts as pure bunk, and apparently neither can our military which has had it's own encounters with these objects. To them it's no longer a laughing matter.

I would argue that thinking UFOs can only be extraterrestrial is unscientific, when there are so many individuals &/or other countries that could be the source of unidentified aerial phenomena - IOW, Occam's razor and all that...

I’ve never seen an UFO, but see Sandhill Cranes daily. Location matters, I guess.

”I saw a couple of sandhill cranes in my next door neighbor's yard yesterday. Google pics if you've never seen because they really are quite stunning. They don't usually wander into residential areas so this was very cool to see.”

Young sandhills with young granddaughters.

" I cannot just simply explain away all of the eye witness accounts "

Yes, but you're falling into the trap with an invalid argument by following the pattern "We don't know what it is, so it must be ______ . There's nothing it must be, unknown is unknown. Eyewitness accounts don't need to be explained - if there's no evidence suggesting what it is, then it's unknown and should be left at that.

The instances of specific individuals you mentioned earlier were disavowed or shown to be bogus.

This topic is not unlike spiritual beliefs of various kinds. If someone decides they want to believe in something on a faith basis only, that's the end of it. An anchor is dropped and no further thoughtful or critical assessments (critical meaning systematic and open-mindedly free of bias, not as a negative aspersion) is possible. Decision made, contrary signs are ignored, the case is closed.

Following the lead of Tyson and so many others, not as an original thought (I'm not enough trained in the paths of reasoning and logic to get there myself), I'm very open to any possibility for which there is evidence. The UFO subculture has been a bastion of phonies and charlatans almost exclusively for a long time, maybe that colors attitudes.

" Yes, but you're falling into the trap with an invalid argument by following the pattern "We don't know what it is, so it must be ______ .

Nope Elmer, not falling into a trap and I never claimed "that it must be" anything so don't put words in my mouth.

" The instances of specific individuals you mentioned earlier were disavowed or shown to be bogus".

Not true for those 3 I listed, debunkers will put forth their "It might be X", but they haven't proved anything, there will always be some attempt at explaining what witnesses saw and Venus, satellites, etc do fit in many instances but not always. When entities are involved the debunkers have few choices other than labeling it a hoax or a delusion without any proof, just their speculating which can be just as "bogus" at their attempt explaining it away.

" This topic is not unlike spiritual beliefs of various kinds. If someone decides they want to believe in something on a faith basis only, that's the end of it. "

That may be true for some but I do not want to believe, I only examine the evidence even if it's only circumstantial and especially those encounters which involve multiple witnesses.

" The UFO subculture has been a bastion of phonies and charlatans almost exclusively for a long time, maybe that colors attitudes. "

True, I remember the long history of so-called "contactees" during the heyday of the 50's who were only looking to make a buck on other's interest in the topic. There are many charlatans out there, many hoaxsters, etc, who only cloud the issue with noise and contribute to the ongoing stigma of the topic.

Since our military is perplexed by what their pilots are seeing, chasing, and recording on camera and radar I have no problem with Carol's thoughts posted above about the possibility of top secret highly advanced technology. If so I hope it's ours, but then again this phenomena has been reported since the late 40's so there's that.

Perhaps I misunderstood you. But when you said " I cannot just simply explain away all of the eye witness accounts ", that suggested your having an interest and affinity toward one particular point of view that I think warrants not two seconds of time to think about. If you agree that in the absence of a fact-based determination it could be anything at all or nothing at all, why are you so very well versed in just one possibility that has long been voiced by a less than credible crowd and long discredited too?

Trying to track down less than frequent apparent visual phenomenon is not a task the military is equipped to handle. Or, frankly, needs to care about. As far as I have heard, there have been no consequences. I think the token efforts have been PR/political in nature. Doing something so as to not be accused of doing nothing.

I don't think military leadership over the years has cared diddly squat about this - what is your source to suggest anyone is perplexed? Leaders are free to speak freely when they leave the service. If it were a major area of concern, there would be dozens of books written by former commanders? Are there any at all?

I didn't find the Occam's razor reference particularly relevant. That suggests that when considering alternatives, the simplest explanation is more likely. There are no alternatives or explanations at all because to this point, there's no factual evidence suggesting there's anything real to be concerned with.

I'm not troubled by your view and I hope you're not troubled by mine. I intend no personal offense. I don't think there's any common ground, which is fine.

With an estimated 4 trillion planets in the universe how can't just one of these have a highly advance form of life is what I say. I don't need proof from an earthling to stick with the better odds.

Science has been searching for Goldilocks planets like earth and found 16 that aren't to hot or to cold that could support life, as if another life form in the stars must be carbon bases and evolved like humans is like saying the world is flat. A life form could be Silicon based or another metalloid or non metal based element with their own comfort zone. The alien could have a life span over thousands of earth years on a planet without any mass extinctions like earth had. Their evolution could involve 100's of million years and not the mere 6 million from the point of our apelike ancestors existed so we don't know, and the brightest human who ever lived could be dumber than one of their space pets.

Kevin I agree with you.

Elmer no offense taken and none given. Many who are smarter than the both of us have beaten this topic to death for decades and as many back & forth discussions I have had with others over the years until we have that pound of alien flesh in hand it will continue to be an exercise in futility and end up like this :

Kevin you speak wisely. Most scientists, particularly those involved with astronomy/astrophysics, astrobiology, etc now agree that other intelligent life forms are most certainly out there among the stars just as we are present here on the Earth. Our Universe is at least ~13.8 Billion years old based upon the most recent models which means that our solar system is young in comparison at just ~4.5 billion years.

The big bugaboo about "others" being here and now are the vast distances involved and our present understanding of the laws of physics (the limitations of light speed). But the book of physics is far from being complete and physicists know that more chapters will be added as our understanding of physics continues to evolve. Besides, even with our present day technology and the plans on the drawing boards it has been projected that the human race could colonize much of the Milky Way within the next 1 hundred thousand years which is a blink of the eye in the universal time scale. There's little reason to think that we would be the first to do it.

I think that depends on whether or not we destroy our planet before then...

vgkg, your words suggest you have an obvious and focused bias for one particular possibility. "We don't know but it could be _______" is a false premise and doesn't advance a conversation. "It could be" something, "it could be" nothing, "it could be" simply imagining something that's not there.

There are always aberrations in large population or samples of anything. Life on Earth could be the one-off aberration. Keep separate the words possible and likely. Absolutely anything is possible on this topic, nothing at all is likely with the science we now have, as you point out.

There have been scores of SETI efforts going on for a long time. As you rightly mentioned, people much smarter than us in the general population have been so engaged. No real findings (to my knowledge) have been attained. Consider where that puts the unsupported speculations. If there is life somewhere too far away to reach, too far away to communicate with, then..... it doesn't matter at all, does it?

"vgkg, your words suggest you have an obvious and focused bias for one particular possibility. "We don't know but it could be _______" is a false premise and doesn't advance a conversation "

Elmer in the very next paragraph you say " Life on Earth could be the one-off aberration" We are both guilty of speculation and there is nothing wrong with that so I'm not sure what your point is?

My bias goes with the flow of the advancing science which was mentioned in the previous post, it indicates that we are not alone even though we have only 1 example to go by > us. ufo sightings have nothing to do with that bias, if nothing else they cause someone like me to stop and ponder. As for our own form of communication, it may well be (or if your prefer "could be") a short window of use before we discover another more advanced avenue of sending messages.

What I was trying to say was that both "anything could be" and also "nothing could be" exist on a par to describe the situation. Because nothing is known, the numbers cited for the size of the universe are irrelevant. There is no greater likelihood for there being something as to there being nothing. That leaves no reason and nothing (as far as I can see) to speculate about. No call for anyone's imagination to produce possibilities to replace the "nothing"..

One "nothing" that has a 100% likelihood is the "nothing" that I have to add. I think we've exhausted this and thanks for being polite.

since space life has become a theoretical debate I've called in the best theoretical physicist of all times. Please give a warm welcome to Albert Einstein! (applaud)

In January 1920 Albert Einstein was interviewed by the London Daily Mail and asked his opinions about extraterrestrial life, and this is what he said;
“There is every reason to believe that Mars and other planets are inhabited,” answered the professor. “Why should the earth be the only planet supporting human life? It is not singular in any other respect. But if intelligent creatures do exist, as we may assume they do elsewhere in the universe, I should not expect them to try to communicate with the earth by wireless [radio]. Light rays, the direction of which can be controlled much more easily, would more probably be the first method attempted.”
VGKG, Einstein would be proud of you. Based on knowledgeable deductive reasoning along with curiosity and imagination you concluded space life is very plausible, I've seen your garden pictures and see creativity which only comes from imagination, and you expressed you theory without confusion all could understand.

Albert Einstein had to go but left you some of his quotes as to why he's proud of you.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."

Albert left some quotes for the opponent stating there is a 100% likelihood of nothing.

"If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough."

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."

"Logic will get you from A to B, imagination will take you everywhere."

Please give a big hand for Albert! (applaud)

Thank you too Elmer for being polite, I had previously determined that the topic had been exhausted a couple of posts back with my dog chasing its tail meme.

Also, thank you Kevin for your very kind words and your astute observation of Einstein's wise words. He was well know for his thought experiments/imagination that helped him develop important theories which have withstood the test of time.

Back to the question:

Our DS could tell you something unusual he observed at age seven.

On a trip to Colorado we made a detour to the town where my GGF was a doctor during the silver rush. The red brick house he'd built had become a funeral home, and the proprietor invited us into the parlor. While we were visiting, DS needed to use the toilet and was pointed in the right direction.

That night DS asked us about "the man who didn't talk". We hadn't known that he'd taken a detour returning to the parlor. He'd evidently encountered someone being prepared for his funeral.

IDK why he waited until that evening to ask. I guess he gave up trying to make sense of it on his own, and he probably didn't want to be scolded for snooping.