Scotland: Aliens' Official Favorite Destination 610
scubacuda writes: "This Reuters article says that Scotland has the highest concentration of UFO sightings--300 per year, the most per square kilometer and per head of population of anywhere in the world. That means 0.004 UFOs for every square kilometer of Scotland -- a rate four times as high as in France or Italy, earth's other UFO hotspots. (In comparison, only 2,000 UFOs are spotted every year in the United States represent, making just 0.0002 sightings per square kilometer. Bonnybridge--30 miles west of Edinburgh--seems to be the Scotland equivalent of Roswell, New Mexico). UFO nuts explain it in terms of aliens being attracted to remote areas. But can anyone say *autosuggestion*?"
A book recommendation for the submitter: (Score:5, Informative)
Funny what people believe, isn't it?
Re:Possible Conclusions (Score:2, Informative)
Re:A book recommendation for the submitter: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:UFO != Aliens (Score:2, Informative)
I live about 30 miles from Bonnybridge - there are three major airports near by (Glasgow, Prestwick and Edinburgh) - a number of chemical works, Helicopters servicing remote places/coastguard etc. Some interesting atmospheric effects - you get some great skies, The chemical plants often have flares too.
So on the whole - a lot of stuff happens in the sky - I've seen stuff thats had me guessing for a while (until a little bit of investigation reveals the answer). To someone who is looking for UFO's it must be heaven..
mark
Bonnybridge Aliens (Score:5, Informative)
I live only a few miles away from Bonnybridge, which is about half way between Scotland's two major cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Clue 1. As there is only 50/60 miles or so between these two cities, you can work out that any UFO's would have a chance to be seen in either of these two places if the aliens were visiting Bonnybridge.
This obviously assumes there is *some* sort of horizontal trajectory in the UFO's travel plans, unless they just come straight out of the sky vertically to visit Bonnybridge, which seems unlikely.
No, I am afraid that I come bearing bad news. Bonnybridge is the UFO capital of whatever ONLY because of the activities of one local ex-councillor, Billy Buchanan.
Billy realised a few years ago that by telling news organs including the BBC etc. that he had video of 'mysterious lights in the sky' (see below) they would come and cover his story. Not surprisingly, most of these sightings came around election time.
He even managed to get some bampot who claimed to be an alien to come and speak at the local town hall! The event was a sell-out believe it or not.
Mysterious lights? The fact that Bonnybridge is only 5/6 miles away from the petrochemical refinery plant at Grangemouth, one of Europe's largest (visible from the Great Wall of China), would have nothing to do with mysterious lights, would it?
For those of you haven't seen the Bonnybridge videos - DO NOT DESPAIR. You can recreate your own by taking your video camera (old analogue works best here) outside on an overcast night (Bonnybridge is *always* overcast) and set it to macro so it is as out of focus as possible and point it at a dodgy street lamp. Flickering ones work best. Move the camera about a bit if you want that Blair Witch effect. Bonnybridge didn't have any sound effects, so maybe you could add these to go one better.
Good on you Billy! (Other small town mayors/politicos take note)
Cheers
Forrest.
Re:A book recommendation for the submitter: (Score:3, Informative)
The evidence from perfectly sober, professional people like pilots and police officers is enough witness power to convict a million OJ's for a million years. Yet skeptics instantly reject it as "media-induced hallucinations". Oddly enough, the more knowledgeable ufo skeptics seem to think that most criminal witness testimony is bogus for similar reasons. Let them all of jail!
A whole lot of witness testimony is garbage. It is a pretty well known to be garbage in police / lawyer circles. It's not taht people are bad or stupid they are just very open to suggestion. Your sub-concious and your experiences effect you judement more than you think.
Re:A book recommendation for the submitter: (Score:3, Informative)
While I agree with you that Sagan's "evidence" about these things is often suspect, I have to take issue with a few of your points...
About 200 years ago, rank and file scientists rejected the notion that "rocks fall from the sky". They called "falling rock" witnesses superstitious, drunk, etc.
First of all, can you provide a reference where anyone has ever rejected the notion of "rocks from the sky". I highly doubt this. First of all, "shooting stars" have been widely known since the beginning of time, and "rocks from the sky" very often leave physical evidence: A glowing piece of rock in a crater in the ground.
On the other hand, we have ZERO physical evidence of aliens, unless you want to count "crop circles" or other obvious hoaxes.
The evidence from perfectly sober, professional people like pilots and police officers is enough witness power to convict a million OJ's for a million years.
My understand is that it's often difficult to convict someone totally based on eyewitness accounts, simply because eyewitness accounts are the least reliable evidence.
Yet skeptics instantly reject it as "media-induced hallucinations".
I don't think the average skeptic dismisses UFO sightings as "hallucinations". It's much more likely that these people simply see something that they don't understand, but have perfectly reasonable explanations. Weather balloons, strange reflections, even the moon in daylight can fool people under the right circumstances.
I'm pretty much convinced that we are alone in the galaxy as far as intelligent life goes, so I tend toward the skeptical point of view. But the bottom line point is that the really is very little "hard" evidence to support that there is any "unsolved mystery".
Re:You mean... (Score:1, Informative)