UFO’s – Do they Exist? If so, what are they?

U.F.O’s – Unidentified Flying Objects

There have been thousands and thousands of UFO sightings over the years. Are UFO’s real? Could all these reports be hoaxes? If they are real, are they beings that we should fear or beings that have come to help us?

As we start the year 2019 a unique event happened. Something that has never happened before in the history of mankind. A man-made object has encountered an object in the Kuiper Belt area of space, at the boundary of our solar system! On January 1, 2019 the New Horizons space probe flew by Ultima Thule. The name means “beyond the farthest frontiers”. Ultima Thule appears to be two pieces of rock joined together for a combined length of 31 km. There are rocks, meteors, comets, stars, asteroids out there. Is there life? Are there UFO’s?

Scientists who do not believe in God or any god believe the universe and life evolved by random chance over the past 13.8 billion years. This faith, belief system is called science. Let’s look at what science really knows to-date and what we think is needed for life to evolve.

1. Abiogenesis – life coming from non-living things. Living matter at some point must have come from non-living matter. How did this transition happen? No one knows. So far all life forms have come from pre-existing living organisms. Cloning for example starts with the original animal, living, and copies it, growing a second one. Even taking parts of a cell, not a whole cell, is beginning with a living organism.
2.  For live to evolve by abiogenesis, a suitable environment must previously exist. That environment must contain the building blocks of life. For example, to build a house one must have bricks or cement for the foundation, wood for the walls, wire for the electrical and pipes for plumbing. Each of those build blocks is made of their own build blocks. Sand, lime, water and stone make cement. Copper and plastic make wire, etc. Likewise life requires proteins as building blocks. These proteins are made from their building blocks called amino acids. These acids are made of molecules which are combinations of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. All these levels of build blocks must each have evolved or come from somewhere.
3. Without going into details, there are more underlying requirements. The molecules or chemicals supposedly came from exploding stars. These stars evolved from somewhere and something as well.
4. Our current stars, called population 1 stars, evolved from population 2 and those from population 3. Population 3 stars came from matter, mostly hydrogen, created by the Big Bang which gravity pulled into clumps, compressed and then became stars. So the evolution theory goes.

Back to UFO’s, …

for them to exist all these evolution steps must have happened not only on Earth but also elsewhere in the universe. Then life evolved ‘out there’ somewhere. What are the odds of that?

In 1961 astronomer Frank Drake developed a formula to calculate the odds of intelligent life ‘out there’. The formula is

N = R* • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L

• N = The number of civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy whose electromagnetic emissions are detectable.
• R* = The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life.
• fp = The fraction of those stars with planetary systems.
• ne = The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for life.
• fl = The fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears.
• fi = The fraction of life bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges.
• fc = The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.
• L = The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

Looks fairly simple. Just determine these 7 variables and multiple them together. The problem is, scientists do not have a single one of these variables calculated. Thus any answer to the question of the chance of UFO’s is purely a guess.

On July 5, 2018 the magazine SPACE published an article on the Drake equation and current estimates. The result is that in our galaxy, the Milky Way, the odds could be high as 99.6% that we are alone. In fact is goes on to says “The new numbers mean there’s a good chance humanity is the only detectable intelligent civilization around.” (https://www.space.com/41080-alien-life-may-be-rare-today.html).

So the odds of UFO’s from space seems highly unlikely. Then what are they?

Expanding the standard meaning of UFO we can conclude a different answer, if we have an open mind. Near the top of this article I referred to scientists who do not believe in God or a god. If we open our minds to the possibility that there is at least one god then what can we conclude? In fact, let’s be specific and look at the God on which the first 37 books of the Bible are based. This God is the one followed by the Jews, Christians and Muslim’s (in many ways) around the world. (NOTE – I stated the first 37 books, the Old Testament as it is called. This is because Jews and Muslims do not believe in the last 29 books, the New Testament).

Looking at the Old Testament, these ancient historical writings, we do find references to what could be called UFO’s. The best record comes from the writing of Ezekiel, as found in the first chapter of his book. I quote verse 4 to 9 here. “I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was human, but each of them had four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. All four of them had faces and wings, and the wings of one touched the wings of another. Each one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved.”

In conclusion, depending on your starting assumptions, your worldview as it is called, one can says yes, UFO’s exist and they are some sort of spiritual beings or no, from a ‘science’ point of view UFO’s do not exist as the conditions for life as we know it in our universe are so finely tuned that Earth is probably the only place life exists.

Interestingly, this last option, that Earth is the only place life exists, makes Earth a very special place in the universe. This is something non-believing scientists do not want to accept because it means Earth is not random, but that we are here by design, by a plan, which implies a designer, a planner. That would be a god. Thus, either way ones looks at it, the same conclusion is inferred. There is a supreme intelligence, a god or God who created the universe, the earth, and all life, including any UFO’s.

The Museum of Natural Science and History endeavours to share many controversial issues in science to open the minds of anyone who wants to know the truth. These are people who do not want to simply accept what they have been spoon-fed to believe, but to seriously search for the truth.