I say, people are FOOLS, for putting down this idea, and show how narrow they are. And how frightened they are. What would happen if some ships showed up? The masses would go nuts, becoming entirely dangerous, to themselves and others.
I myself have seen some weird things in the skies at night, including my parents, friends, family, many times as a group. The men being experienced pilots, or other military persons, insist, "we dont have anything like that". A moot point.
Civilizations, go down, die off, wars, etc. Well, if it was ever let out, any evidence that was found, (and I know many books, publish what has been found), it shakes the predisposed knowledge, and concepts of modern man, esp established religions. Like one post said, they got the same god we do. Perhaps they were the reason we have our religions- if I was a primitive man, I would consider these people with flying machines, gods too.
there are many passages in the bible, which point to that, ie: Ezekel going up in a wheel.
And yes, i have seen passages in the bible (eg Ezekiel's 'spinning wheels') as well as the references in Genesis about the Nephilim (who people used to say meant 'giants' but in the original translations it means 'descended from above').
I have also read the Mahabarat (at least a good part of it) as well as part of the Ramayana and there are references to 'Vimana' which are huge flying disks.
And i found it funny that when Alexander the Great was nearing India he saw huge flying disks that looked like the Vimana referred to in the Hindu holy books.
There are also the Nazca Lines in South America, which are like the recent crop circles .....but the thing that makes these not hoaxes is the fact that the lines are many miles long, they make some shapes that are complex, are made with very small stones which seem to 'materialize' when seen from afar (high up), and can only be seen by flying over in a plane (around a mile high). And they were made centuries ago! How were they made? I do not know ....it could be that their creator was an amazing genius who could perceive a 2-D-plane in 3-D form, including the ability to have the vision to somehow see how it would look in a plane a mile high in the sky (even though obviously planes did not exist then). Who knows?
I also find it weird that the Dagoon tribe in Africa knew about hidden stars (the twin star of Sirius ...Sirius-B) that 'visitors from the sky' had told them about them, when everyone else then in the Western world did not know they existed (in the 19th century).
I also find it weird that in 1942 the Army reserve at LA started firing at 'discs' that hovered over LA. They thought it was some sort of Axis attack, but the funny thing was that these orbs were hovering and even though they fired 1403 anti-aircraft rounds (causing friendly fire incidents as some of the ordnance landed on the ground) they did not manage to bring even one of them down! The UFOs hovered for a good time period, and were witnessed by over a million people, and then went away without doing any direct harm (4 people died of heart attacks, plus the damage caused by AA ordnance fallign down without exploding in the air above).It was in all the papers the next day ...and today the Army reports still say it happened and have the documentation to back it up (apart from the photos in the papers of the carnage that followed when the ordnance landed on houses) ..BUT the navy said it never happened! Figure that out!
And then in some paintings done in centuries past sometimes one will notice that in the corner of paintings depicting important events put on canvas there is usually a 'flying disc' drawn! Actually there was a whole program on this on the History Channel some time ago when they were showing these paintings that had UFOs in them! What could those be? It could be that in the Acension of Mary the painter decided to draw a 'discus' thrown by some athlete ...or it could be an alien craft. It depends on what someone wants to believe.
Personally i think there are some very weird stuff that happens. And UFOs can usually be explained logically ....however sometimes ...................!?????!?!?!!!!
That is why i keep an open mind.