Why do some people NOT believe in alien UFOs and physics?

Question

I'd like to hear from a non-believer's point of view, but please don't be rude. I just want to knw why some people so bluntly are against these things.

Answer 1

Why must you infer that there is something wrong with someone who does not believe in aliens?  Since there has never been a single documented, provable, scientifically examined alien artifact, it is natural that those of us with a scientific viewpoint will not believe.  Couple that with enough knowledge of basic physics to know that (as we understand it) it would require a complete rewriting of the laws of physics for an alien craft to travel to Earth, and a disbelief is the natural course.  The real question becomes why anyone would believe in something which does NOT have any of that scientific support.

I am at a total loss as to why you couple belief in aliens with belief in physics, since (as I mention above), it is an understanding of physics that makes belief in aliens do difficult.

Simply put, anyone who understands physics should NOT believe in aliens, and vice versa.

Answer 2

Because it scares them.

Answer 3

I believe in these things, but I know some people who don't because they've chosen to believe in the Bible and refuse to see beyond those few words written thousands of years ago as if we have learned nothing at all since then.

Answer 4

It's not that easy a question.  Most of the evidence has been pretty poor and unconvincing.  However, there are millions of UFO and abduction reports.  So either we have mass delusion, or we're being visited by aliens regularly.  Both ideas are extraordinary.  When the claim is extraordinary, we need extraordinary evidence.

Carl Sagan, in his book, The Demon Haunted World, starts out with this premise and makes the case for mass delusion.  It's an extremely well researched and thought out book.  A must read.  Dr. Sagan goes into the basics of the scientific method, but does not assume much in the way of background.  It's a pretty easy read.

Answer 5

I believe in them, but some people don't because they've never been proven to be real..Even pictures of UFO's..with the technology these days..Anybody could just make it up and fake it.

Answer 6

Some need literal proof.

It's also why some people don't belive in god.

There is no absolute proof that either exists.

But then again, I comes down to the person and how open and accepting they are of other people's ideas even if they clash with their own.

Answer 7

Most people need proof. A clear photo or something valid.

Answer 8

i somewhat believe in them but i think that some pple dont believe in them because they are scared

Answer 9

PSYCHIC.  That's the word you're looking for.

People do not believe in psychics because psychics can't make a convincing case for themselves.  Their readings are vague and could apply to anyone.  When pressed to make specific predictions - names, places, dates - they are invariably wrong.  Until one of them can prove they can do what they claim, there's no point in accepting their claims.

http://www.stopsylviabrowne.com

People do not believe in UFOs because there's no evidence to support the claim that aliens are visiting Earth.  Think about it this way.  Astronomers spend all their time looking up at the sky, but you don't hear them claiming to see UFOs.  If anyone saw them, wouldn't it be them, since they look up so much more often?  Or maybe it's because they know what they're looking at, and people who see UFOs rarely ever bother looking up and get confused when they do?

Answer 10

70 years of psychic research has not yielded one single unambiguous demonstration of any such ability.  The James Randi challenge has been out there for about 30 years, offering a million dollars to anyone who can demonstrate psychic ability in a controlled test.  Anyone claiming psychic abilities has only to apply for a test.  The terms and conditions of the test must be agreed to by both parties before any examination is done.  The criteria for a successful demonstration are among those terms.  If the claimant fails, he/she will not attempt to retroactively claim the test was unfair.  So far, only a handful of people have tried to win Randi's million dollars and they have failed miserably. One of them even thought she was going to win the prize with a simple card trick.

I have read numerous books on the subject, from both sides.  The fact that no such ability has ever been demonstrated along with the fact that it is almost certainly impossible within the laws of physics, it definitely isn't fear that determines my viewpoint.  In adition to grossly shoddy "research," there have been numerous people who are deliberate and outright frauds, like Uri Geller, Ingo Swann, Jonathan Edward, and Sylvia Browne.  Browne agreed to the Randi challenge over 3 years ago.  She has still not shown up for a test, despite Larry King's promise that he would serve as a facilitator between Randi and Browne.  So even though King frequently invites Browne onto his show, he must know she is a fraud, since he has done *nothing* to help this test happen.  Basically, he has served as a platform for making her famous and enabling her to rip people off at the rate of $700 for a half-hour "reading."  I wonder how much she pays him.

The UFO history is much the same.  There is no reason to believe in them and there are a couple of good reasons to doubt that ANY of the millions of reports are of genuine ET contact or sighting.  Again, I have read about 2 dozen books on the subject, including several of Philip Klass' books which expose the idiocy and sometimes fraud of this whole UFO phenomenon through very careful and honest investigation of the most famous cases.  I've even busted a couple of cases myself.  (Others may have done it, too, but I made certain discoveries independently, which totally discredited the claims.)  

Once again, fear has nothing to do with it.  I think it would be really cool if we made contact with extraterrestrials.  I'm just one who is not going to believe in something in the absence of solid evidence when there SHOULD have been tons of it by now, if either of these phenomena were true.

Answer 11

belief is irrelevant. let's see some facts.

while you can make very good arguments for other life existing in our universe, there is no evidence that life has actually occurred elsewhere in the universe, let alone visited us. you make it sound like ufo kookery is some sort of religion: "i believe. don't confuse me with facts."

first contact, even if only with europan microbes, will be the biggest event in history. it just hasn't happened yet.

Answer 12

When you consider the incredible vastness of space, the fact that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, and the distance between the stars, there is no reason for any aliens to even find the Earth, never mind come visit.

If light takes over 4 years to reach us from just the nearest star (a trip that would take us tens of thousands of years), the idea of beings traveling from even longer distances just to meet us for any reason (friendship, conquest, curiosity, resource grabbing) is insane.

People say "Oh, they travel faster than light, their technology is so much more advanced..." Who made them experts on alien technology? Even aliens have to follow physical laws.

I don't doubt there is life out there, and probably intelligent life. The sheer scale of the Universe almost requires it; but that same vastness also means that getting in a ship and flying here is just as certainly impossible.

Answer 13

I will answer this in two sections

1) UFO's - I have seen many odd and strange objects in the sky whilst doing astronomical observations, however, whilst to me some of these will remain unidentified, there is someone who could explain each and every one of these. There is no real proof that we have ever been "visited". If we had, it would be the biggest new story of all time for all the world and its history. The biggest ever. But, why would a race that could defy the laws of physics, transverse 100's or 1000's of light-years just to draw pretty pictures in crops? Or abduct a lonely old man in a sparse area? or just play hide and seek? If they were that advanced, they would not be afraid of us as they would know we do not have weaponry to deal with them if they decided to attack. So that means they have no reason to skirt around the fringes. There are many many more reasons why we have nor are likely to be visited by another life form. The main reason is simply distance.

2) Physics is what bounds everything, and I mean everything in existence. Without a proper understanding of physics, everything we have and know today would not exist. So, I will make an assumption here. I think you actually mean psychics. Well here is a totally different set of parameters. If you mean psychics then no, there is no such thing. Please feel free though to direct anyone you know who is claiming to have such abilities to this site: http://skepdic.com/randi.html and tell them to claim the million dollar prize on offer (all I ask is 20% spotters fee). As you will see, out of all the thousands and thousands of people who claim to have special abilities, none of them seem to be able to take a million bucks from a person whom they despise. The best offers of excuses for this are:

              ---   1)"I don't want the money" - fine don't have the money for yourself, take the money and give it to charity. Not to do so is selfish of those charlatans who make such claims.

           ---     2)"it doesn't work like that. You cant just turn it on and off like a tap". And yet when you go to one of these people once you hand over your herd earned, they can "turn it on". But in a carefully scripted, crafted, non specific way.

Answer 14

I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who does not believe in physics, but UFOs are another matter.  Thinking about the fact that there are other, more advanced, races than humans seriously infringes on thousands of years of accumulated human ego.  Not to mention, people are afraid of the unknown.  UFOs are still considered unknown because no one can point to a tangible object and say "This is a UFO and this is proof".  Physics on the other hand directly effects you every second of your life with a certain immunity to disbelief.

Answer 15

It is really sad how people just believe everything that mainstream media, religion, and government propaganda tells them about UFOs and psychic phenomena. They refuse to believe what is before their very eyes, much as folks use to believe that the earth was flat, or at the center of the universe. Even Einstein, who spent much of his career disproving commonsense, refused to believe what his general relativity was telling him about the nature of the Universe, because it went too far against commonsense. So Einstein created the cosmological constant in order to "make" the universe conform to commonsense expectation.  He called it his greatest blunder, the cosmological constant.  However, people are taught in school basic principles and laws governing nature and commonsense, instead of how to really "think" and "reason".  How many times through out history has "commonsense" been proven to be misleading.

The reasons that people don't place much weight on ideas like human cloning; UFOs, ESP, Teloportation, mind reading from a distant, and other such phenomena is very simple. It is a total lack of presenting humanity with "true and unbiased" data by mainstream media on these subjects.  Let's take UFOs for example, why doesn't the government acknowledge they are real phenomenon?  Well the propaganda is: they fear it would cause a world wide panic.  Which is absolute nonsense.  What the government truly fears is: the people would lose faith in the old traditions; their governments, and even worth, their religion.  If that should occur, what do you think would happen to government and religious control over the people?  The government fears that the people would turn to the aliens as some kind of savior; those far wiser than mere man made governments and religions. People might turn to these far more advanced entities to rescue us from ourselves; to become our new leaders and fix our societies, governments, and world before we humans destroy it and ourselves completely.  That's what I believe would ultimately happen if the people of the world knew the truth.  The last thing that governments and organized religion wants is for the people to turn to other powers for answers.

Tell the people the truth. Give them all of the facts and let the people decide how to act upon that information. That will never willingly happen as government and organized religion cannot take the risk---they are, instead, the ones that would go in to a panic if the people should learn the truth about how the world, nature, and the universe actually works.

As classical and quantum physics demonstrates over and over again---the world; the universe, life, isn't what commonsense would have you believe that it is.

See: The Strange World Of Quantum Entanglement

http://calitreview.com/51

A PRIMARY QUANTUM MODEL OF TELEPATHY

http://www.parapsych.org/papers/44.pdf

Biosystems as conscious holograms

http://www.emergentmind.org/PDF_files.ht...

ENTANGLED MINDS: Extrasensory Experiences In A Quantum Reality

by Dean Radin

ISBN: 13-978-1-4165-1677-4

THE ROAD TO REALITY: A Complete Guide To The Laws Of The Universe

by Roger Penrose

ISBN: 13-978-0-679-45443-4

Answer 16

From what Carl Sagan once said, extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.

You can say more of a megalomaniac attitude, and how I spelled megalomaniac correctly, I will never know.  That something is greater than them.  Or is beyond their comprehension.

That the epic scope of such things is beyond their perception.  Why some people still say the lunar landings were a hoax.  That they could not perceive the idea we can develop the forces required to even reach the moon, and the resources back then to land their safely and lift off again.

And why some people say that climate change is a crock.  They can imagine the amount of damage 1 car can do, but not 100 million.  The numbers say yes, but the perception as to envision 100 million cars, it's beyond their ability to perceive, even with the numbers.

Answer 17

One can believe in physics because there is a great deal of evidence and reasoning in support of in.

This is not true of explanations of UFO-type phenomena that involve aliens.