Just because you see something that you do not know what it is, that does not makes you a tinfoil cap wearing nut.
In the summer of 2005, a friend and I were out late night fishing on Richland-Chambers Lake in Central Texas. This was just after the shuttle Discovery had separated from the space station on a mission STS-114. It was the first one after the Columbia loss. Both Discovery and the ISS were very visible in the sky that night. It was a wonder to watch them until they disappeared when they went out of sunlight and into the earth's shadow.
A little later, I looked up and saw another object above. It was not as bright as the shuttle or ISS. It looked for all purposes as a satellite in orbit. However, instead of a steady, straight trajectory as all the satellites I'd seen before in orbit, this one was juking all about moving in a rough northeast to southwest direction.
I told my friend to look up and he saw it, too. The UFO continued to juke around on a zigzag path as it travel across the sky for several minutes before it too disappeared as it went into Earth's shadow.
To this day, I wonder what it was I and my friend saw up there. It was not like anything else I've ever seen in the nighttime sky.
I can recall as a child watching Sputnik (actually it was the satellite's trailing booster rocket also in orbit) in the Fall of 1957. That bright pinpoint of white light marching across the sky in a steady, straight line is seared forever in my memory. Yet over the next 50 years, I have seen many other space payloads, but never another like that juking one of Summer, 2005.
Over the years I've thought often about what the devil the dang thing was and why was it doing that jitterbug dance?
My best guess was it was a military payload doing that juke dance as avoidance to any possible hunter/killer satellite, but that is not something I have ever been able to find in any articles about space warfare.
I cannot believe what I saw was an alien spacecraft chucked full of little green, gray or polka dot guys and/or gals here to steal our secrets, babies, ice, water, molybdenum, supermodels or our only working copy of the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator. It was not a scout for an invasion or a first cook sample tasting us before writing To Serve Man in his native tongue.
In truth, I do believe there is intelligent life out there in the universe. All those uncountable billions and billions and billions of galaxies and their googol (a 1 followed by 100 zeros) plus number of stars cannot help but over the billions of years since the Big Bang to produce several, if not, millions or billions of different intelligent lifeforms.
In my belief, these intelligence aliens do not sit up nights worrying about us. I don't believe they are constantly coming here to watch us, but it would not be a life changing event for me if they showed up one day before I pass away.
Matter of fact... where are you guys? I want to know what that was I saw back in 2005 and I ain't getting any younger!!!
All those uncountable billions and billions and billions of galaxies and their googol (a 1 followed by 100 zeros) plus number of stars cannot help but over the billions of years since the Big Bang to produce several, if not, millions or billions of different intelligent lifeforms.
***We got a start on covering that possibility with the probability calculations started by Coppedge and others on this thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1904271/posts?page=86#86
Coppedges calculations of 1 in 10^123 for the formation of a protein of 445 amino acids in length, and 1 in 10^29345 for the formation of an aggregate of proteins minimal for the existence of life are computed on the basis of the left-handed amino acid problem alone. Once that’s plugged into the Drake Equation, you’re looking at maybe one in a trillion galaxies that might have intelligent life, if you’re lucky. And by lucky, I’m giving you 50 ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE leeway.
I think you were probably seeing a launch vehicle (rocket) tumbling around in low orbit, presenting different parts of itself to the sunshine as it tumbled. I've observed many of those over the years. They indeed appear to be jerking around as they move.
It was the light from Venus reflecting off some swamp gas.
Actually, if it was 2005 then it was probably just the tequila.
Now, if it had been in 2006....
My father-in-law was a pilot for Pan-Am and flew the round-the-world flight for several years. I asked him if he ever saw any 'UFOs'. His answer was no, but his vehemence was rather too strong.