Why do UFOs have lights?

[Goggs Mackay]

I so simply think is that they want to be seen to a degree. I certainly don't think it's to conform to FAA regs. or that they are part of the technology needed to operate.

 

[AponeMC]

Eyewitness accounts and videos of aerial light anomolies will never prove anything.

So why bother turning the landing lights off?

 

[Ezechiel]

For the UFO I saw, the light seemed to be a by-product of propulsion because during flight the whole thing glowed, when it landed it went dark, and just before zoomed off it became bright white.

Makes a lot of sense, there's really no need for any lighting and portholes for that matter. By-product of propulsion would make sense, and even some friction/reaction with atmospheric gases should be the only source of photonic emissions.

Thinking out of the box, you'd have to imagine that any occupant of an advanced scout ship would have the ability of querying external sensors of the ship and also be able to map out external environments in extreme high definition real-time holographic detail if needed. Why use lighting when you have the sensors to rebuild the exterior visual environment with 100% accuracy ?

The rotating saucer reports always seemed illogical and counter intuitive... but if the rotation provides some kind of 'refresh-rate' for external sensors on the craft then why not. Its like having eyes all around your head

Now we need a 'Why do saucers rotate' thread lol

 

[pixelsmith]

The high speed turning at right angles thing always seemed illogical to me. The one I saw did not do that at all.

 

[Sentry]

The lights are a headache, as so many turn out to be just aircraft navigation lights, star, planets and so on. Luckily, the phenomenon was pretty well established with daylight sightings before the lights-in-the-sky confusion became rampant.

 

[Ron Collins]

The high speed turning at right angles thing always seemed illogical to me. The one I saw did not do that at all.

How often are daylight sightings associated with this weird zigzag firefly like flight characteristic? Rarely if ever right? So perhaps the propulsion or energy system is to blame. It warps emitted light and to the distant observer it looks like zigzag type flight characteristics. I dunno, need to think about that more.

 

[Randall]

The high speed turning at right angles thing always seemed illogical to me. The one I saw did not do that at all.

High speed angular turns are a hallmark performance ability, but that doesn't mean they always travel in straight lines. The one I saw maneuvered in graceful curves and then stopped dead, hovered for a moment, and then landed in a vertical straight line. It also ascended from takeoff in the same straight line, hovered, and instantly accelerated horizontally when it departed.

 

[Randall]

The lights are a headache, as so many turn out to be just aircraft navigation lights, star, planets and so on. Luckily, the phenomenon was pretty well established with daylight sightings before the lights-in-the-sky confusion became rampant.

Light other than as a byproduct of a propulsion system should also be expected. Virtually all complex life forms with brains on Earth have evolved eyesight. Even many extinct animals all the way back to the dinosaurs had eyesight. Therefore it seems reasonable that given roughly the same conditions for life as ours ( a Goldilocks planet ), there would also be light from a star that would provide a stimulus for the evolution of eyesight. So eyesight ( or at least some light detection ability ) just seems like a really reasonable assumption to make. That being the case, the obvious reason for lights on UFOs is to facilitate vision via illumination.

 

[Ezechiel]

'Why aren't UFOs stealthy' is another angle to this question.

Considering the effort required to send a craft across interstellar void and uncharted solar system configurations, you would think that concealment would be a no-brainer.

My conception of an interstellar exploration ship with organic passengers lol:
You kind of need this stuff....
Artificial star supplying the energy (nuclear fusion driven... A huge tokamak?)
Artificial black hole providing the artficial gravity inside the structure. (we haven't done this yet).
Artificial magnetosphere shielding the occupants from radiations.
Artificial intelligence (craft control and monitoring)
Absolute stealth (security)

With no passengers, you can illuminate all you want

 

[Ron Collins]

'Why aren't UFOs stealthy' is another angle to this question.

Considering the effort required to send a craft across interstellar void and uncharted solar system configurations, you would think that concealment would be a no-brainer.

Who says its uncharted? Our sun is a relatively young one. Perhaps concealment isn't high on the priority list. Personally, I think it more likely that the light shows are intentional. "What do the little monkeys do when we do this?" That sort of thing.

 

[Randall]

'Why aren't UFOs stealthy' is another angle to this question.
Considering the effort required to send a craft across interstellar void and uncharted solar system configurations, you would think that concealment would be a no-brainer.

Well ... UFOs in general are elusive and stealthy, otherwise there would be far more sightings and much more evidence. It's just that from time to time they get noticed anyway, even when they're solid black and silent. The real question is why are there the exceptions?

 

[Randall]

Eyewitness accounts and videos of aerial light anomolies will never prove anything. So why bother turning the landing lights off?

• Eyewitness accounts of aerial light anomalies prove to the witnesses that aerial light anomalies are real.
• Videos of aerial light anomalies prove that the video being played contains images that look like aerial light anomalies.

Therefore it's not entirely accurate to say "Eyewitness accounts and videos of aerial light anomolies will never prove anything." The more people that have the reality of UFOs proven to them by direct firsthand experience, the more of us know that UFOs aren't merely fabrication or fantasy. On the other hand, videos are once removed from direct experience and therefore can contain errors other than those we might find in human perception alone. Plus without the benefit of firsthand experience we cannot always be certain that the video isn't a fabrication. We had early hopes that the prevalence of video cameras would help provide sufficient evidence, but instead, video is adding a huge amount of noise to our search for truth.

 

[Ezechiel]

Who says its uncharted? Our sun is a relatively young one. Perhaps concealment isn't high on the priority list. Personally, I think it more likely that the light shows are intentional. "What do the little monkeys do when we do this?" That sort of thing.

Intentional light shows... a bit like in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. A prelude to contact ?

I like Spielberg's sensory sequence to contact idea, its just brilliant. Lights (elaborate visuals), sound (adjusting to compatible amplitude) and finally physical contact. Light barrier, sound barrier, distance barrier. The visitors conquered these to visit us

I figure stealthy approach and analysis comes first, then comes gradual exposure (would certainly depend on the aggressiveness of the specie lol). A fully exposed craft appearing to earlier civilizations of humans could never be decoded thus there would be no stealth requirement as the extreme strangeness of the thing would force it into the 'god' realm. The same object exposed today would trigger massive reverse engineering efforts and be perceived as a threat to national security.

 

[Constance]

Didn't Paul Hill in his book Unconventional Flying Objects theorize, based on applying conventional physics to ufos, that (aside from beams generated by some ufos) the colors and intensities of light seen to be produced by ufos were secondary effects of other physical processes involved in powering up and speeding away, in hovering, and in settling down on the ground?

 

[Wade]

Didn't Paul Hill in his book Unconventional Flying Objects theorize, based on applying conventional physics to ufos, that (aside from beams generated by some ufos) the colors and intensities of light seen to be produced by ufos were secondary effects of other physical processes involved in powering up and speeding away, in hovering, and in settling down on the ground?

I suppose a logical approach would be to consider what physical forces / energies we are familiar with would tend to generate the various spectrums we associate with ufos and consider their possible use in navigation. even though the craft may create exotic byproducts via their tech it may be they are able to harvest(?) forces that we are currently familiar with, it may be they just take advantage what Is already there.

or maybe their use is more conventional,... to determine right of ways when flying about. remember red on right on return : )

 

[Soupie]

Excellent question. (I actually signed up to ask this question.)

As I've learned from other domains, looking for one explanation to explain the unknown is not necessarily fruitful. Thus, there may be several reasons some UFOs have lights and several reasons why some UFOs don't have lights.

This day and age, it's pretty reasonable to assume there are two types of UFOs:

Non-Human UFOs
Human UFOs

Furthermore, I suspect there are many different "kinds" of non-human UFOs. For instance, there are many kinds of human transportation, all evidencing different levels of technology. That is, the differences described in various UFOs might be due to different manufacturers with different levels of technology, taste, and cultures. Keep in mind that some UFOs may come from non-humans living on earth, non-humans living somewhere in our universe, and non-humans visiting from parallel universes. (I don't have hard evidence of any of those possibilities, but we can't rule them out.)

Furthermore, I make a distinction between "glowing" UFOs and UFOs with traditional lights, such as the 1976 Tehran UFO.

I'm tempted to suppose UFOs with traditional lights are either man-made or at least come from nuts and bolts UFOs with organic creatures inside, where as the glowing, zig-zag UFOs may be unmanned drones or living entities themselves.

Someone made the comment about UFOs with little seats in them: While such reports may simply be false, it's also silly to assume all UFOs are of god-like tech levels. A species has to start somewhere. The spaceship humans have used to travel from our planet all have "little seats" in them.

As far as supposing aliens may be human-like, thats not too much of a stretch either. For all we currently know, perhaps bipedal, humanoid morphologies are the most likely to produce high intelligence. You know, opposable thumbs and all.

Whew. Anyhow, my guess is that UFOs that have lights are designed to travel in the airspace of planets, not just our planet. When these UFOs encounter humans, either cars, helicopters, or jets, they often turn the lights on so we can see them. They don't want an accident anymore than we do. It's just standard procedure. No big deal. Of course, there's no way we could hit them once they are aware of us, but they don't necessarily know that at first.

As for the glowing variety of UFOs, the glow is perhaps a bi-product of propulsion or purposeful style of the vehicle.

I tend to believe the ones with lights are lower tech than the glowing ones and operate under a non-interference policy (which sometimes gets broken).

The glowing UFOs are either higher tech or of a different nature altogether, and they seem to interact with and mess with human tech more often.

Loads of speculation in this post, but just trying to form a narrative out of what's been reported over the years. Non-experiencer myself.

 

[Wade]

And this is what you get when the crafts do not exhibit their running lights

 

[Randall]

Excellent question. (I actually signed up to ask this question.)

As I've learned from other domains, looking for one explanation to explain the unknown is not necessarily fruitful. Thus, there may be several reasons some UFOs have lights and several reasons why some UFOs don't have lights.

This day and age, it's pretty reasonable to assume there are two types of UFOs:

Non-Human UFOs
Human UFOs

Some notes on usage. No doubt some UFO reports stem from the observation of unidentified conventional aircraft. However "human UFOs" are only possible in two contexts. The first is if humans should ever go to another planet in our own high tech craft where the alien inhabitants spot us. Then we would become the aliens to them and our craft would be "human UFOs" to them. The other context is that some aliens are reported to be human ( e.g. the Nordics ), in which case their craft are created by humans, hence "human UFOs". However unidentified aircraft ( including unusual designs and secret projects ) are not considered to be UFOs.

Furthermore, I suspect there are many different "kinds" of non-human UFOs. For instance, there are many kinds of human transportation, all evidencing different levels of technology. That is, the differences described in various UFOs might be due to different manufacturers with different levels of technology, taste, and cultures. Keep in mind that some UFOs may come from non-humans living on earth, non-humans living somewhere in our universe, and non-humans visiting from parallel universes. (I don't have hard evidence of any of those possibilities, but we can't rule them out.)

Furthermore, I make a distinction between "glowing" UFOs and UFOs with traditional lights, such as the 1976 Tehran UFO.

I'm tempted to suppose UFOs with traditional lights are either man-made or at least come from nuts and bolts UFOs with organic creatures inside, where as the glowing, zig-zag UFOs may be unmanned drones or living entities themselves.

Someone made the comment about UFOs with little seats in them: While such reports may simply be false, it's also silly to assume all UFOs are of god-like tech levels. A species has to start somewhere. The spaceship humans have used to travel from our planet all have "little seats" in them.

As far as supposing aliens may be human-like, thats not too much of a stretch either. For all we currently know, perhaps bipedal, humanoid morphologies are the most likely to produce high intelligence. You know, opposable thumbs and all.

Whew. Anyhow, my guess is that UFOs that have lights are designed to travel in the airspace of planets, not just our planet. When these UFOs encounter humans, either cars, helicopters, or jets, they often turn the lights on so we can see them. They don't want an accident anymore than we do. It's just standard procedure. No big deal. Of course, there's no way we could hit them once they are aware of us, but they don't necessarily know that at first.

As for the glowing variety of UFOs, the glow is perhaps a bi-product of propulsion or purposeful style of the vehicle.

I tend to believe the ones with lights are lower tech than the glowing ones and operate under a non-interference policy (which sometimes gets broken).

The glowing UFOs are either higher tech or of a different nature altogether, and they seem to interact with and mess with human tech more often.

Loads of speculation in this post, but just trying to form a narrative out of what's been reported over the years. Non-experiencer myself.

That all makes perfect sense. So even if it's only speculation, at least it shows a genuine interest and some serious thought ... and BTW, welcome to the forum ! I hope you have many productive and enjoyable exchanges.

 

[Tyger]

The question of why ufos seem to so frequently make themselves conspicuous is a very good one.

It's because they are not 'alien craft' - they are phenomena that we have not yet studied or comprehended. I don't think they are one phenomena, either, they are many, but as a group they seem to have something to do with light, electricity and magnetism. If that surmise is the case, they are an earthly phenomenon, not extra earthly.

 

[Randall]

It's because they are not 'alien craft' - they are phenomena that we have not yet studied or comprehended. I don't think they are one phenomena, either, they are many, but as a group they seem to have something to do with light, electricity and magnetism. If that surmise is the case they are an earthly phenomenon, not extra earthly.

The evidence is overwhelming that the word UFO is used to convey the idea of alien craft. The other things you are talking about are catalogued as UAP ( Unidentified Aerial Phenomena ) or if you're in France ( Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena ). UFOs are however clearly a separate class of objects, described as craft ( or objects that fit reasonably within that concept ).