##NEWS## "A bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee says a high-profile hearing on UFOs is just the start of their push for answers. And they are threatening to use heavier-handed tactics if the Pentagon and intelligence agencies stand in their way." (The Hill) ##

Since many people are upset about the homepage getting swamped with UFO/UAP news, maybe a dedicated thread to contain all the discussion would help.

Edit: also please keep the conversation civil

Direct links to each sub-thread:

Link posts (newest first)

• "A bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee says a high-profile...
• "The UFO congressional hearing was 'insulting' to US employees, a top Pentagon official...
• "Congress update: U.S. Senate passes multiple UAP/UFO measures" (D. Dean Johnson...
• This comment on Reddit explained the legislation that this hearing is about, I'll quote...

Text posts (newest first)

• I share sentiments with several others in this post. While the topic of extraterrestrial life is...
• Just my $0.02 since opinions are like assholes, everyone has one... I'm not arrogant enough...
• I want to point something out here as a skeptic and as someone who laughs at these...
• I don't want to drag the conversation down with an extensive write-up of my own thought...
• This comment was deleted by the poster, but there're still some discussions underneath
• Does anyone want to hypothesize why there are congressional hearings about this? Do...

Off-topics (newest first, posts are placed here only after it's noticeably clear that comment labels have taken effect)

• Hypothesizing that aliens might well exist based on the vastness of our universe is not...
• With COVID lab leak article getting traction here, and now this story getting attention, I'm...

Disclosure: I am a skeptical and science-minded person with an interest in paranormal encounters. Does any of this stuff actually exist? I don't know, but I do know that I find it interesting when people share their first hand encounters of things that they can't quite explain.

One thing I loved about Reddit is that it was a treasure trove for paranormal stories, and it is a shame those stories will be lost to the sands of time.

Please feel free to share any stories you might have experienced firsthand, or even share stories from others that you think fits the mark.

Talk rules:

1. Share stories or reply to others.
2. Skepticism is welcome, just don't be a dick.
3. True stories only. This isn't a thread for creative writing or 'campfire' stories.

After re-watching the absolute masterpiece Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Spielberg, 1977), I was in awe. This got me thinking a lot about aliens, and it seems to me that that is an area where movies and TV shows have been lacking in recent years.

When I say "aliens", I mean something truly alien, foreign, mind-bending, even terrifying (although I'm not very fond of horror) -- so not the tame, often humanoid extraterrestrials that we fully understand, like you usually see in Star Trek and Trek-like shows. But rather stories of contact that make us rethink the boundaries of existence.

A recent movie that touches on that was 2016's Arrival, which has more than one similarity with Close Encounters.... Another is Contact (Robert Zemeckis, 1997).

I normally never take reports of ufos seriously, but major news outlets are reporting on videos taken by Navy pilots and the news anchors seem to take it as a joke. Even if these ufos are just high tech government drones or weather balloons, you'd think people would at least be curious in finding out what these things are.

Around the office normally I hear chatter about the news and current events, but nothing about these ufos. Nobody brings them up. On discussion forums, talk about the ufos seems really sparse as well. Even subreddits dedicated to ufos seem to not care very much about these videos being on the mainstream news. Now with legitimate proof that there is something strange in the air, why does nobody seem to care?

What are the leading explanations to what these things are? One explanation I've heard for at least one of the videos is that it's a stationary weather balloon that only appears to be moving due to the camera on the plane moving. I can accept this explanation for that video, but what about the other videos? And what about the navy pilot testimonies? Is this all just a publicity stunt for History Channel's new show?

I'm hoping for serious, honest responses - i.e. don't make up stuff just to troll or try to trick people, nor to just exercise your creative writing skills for entertainment. I am optimistic that people can be respectful to those sharing stories that may be difficult to believe, or which might have mundane explanations.

I've had an interest in the paranormal and unusual for a long time, but haven't delved as deeply as might be warranted. I do my best to keep an open mind, have had a few experiences that are on the fringe, and have met and known people who have recounted much stranger things and i always love hearing about them. Since Tildes is at a point presently where there aren't easy throwaways, and where reputation matters to an extent, I would suspect that tales shared here might have a bit more credibility than those shared pseudo-anonymously on reddit.

So, any experiences you've had which just didn't have a completely satisfying explanation? Any spooks or strange places or times or sights? I invite you to share your experiences here. :)