[PeterM]

Not admitting anything... trying putting a glow stick in a large white helium balloon on a steady night, let it drift and follow it for ages naked eye and then in binos. In fact do it with several balloons and read/hear about the credible UFO sightings the next day in the paper and on the radio/tv, I mean what else could it be its a spaceship right?

Actually there is an even more convincing way to do this but it involves fire so i wont go there....

About 15 years ago as one of about 30 amateur astronomers near Rathdowney we witnessed 4 incredibly bright pieces of space debris falling back to Earth. In fact seen all over SE Qld. Co-incidentally on the same night in some Brisbane suburbs power went out thanks to a possum committing suicide in an electrical transformer. Next morning UFO "researchers" are on the radio claiming it could be nothing less proof of UFO activity, made the papers as well. We rang the radio stations, rang the tv and the only mention we got was that "astronomers observing near Rathdowney also saw the UFOs" wow we unwittingly confirmed it!

Years ago I was presenting an Astronomy night with others to a group of school students at Marsden, Southside Brissy, who spotted a "UFO" moving towards the oval ....yup someone pulled the old glow stick balloon trick. looked convincing in binos!

Years ago at Warwick while presenting a night sky tour myself and several others were bamboozelled by 3 "stars" slowly travelling in perfect triangle formation, horizon to horizon, Tony (FirstLight) can tell you what that was cause he and others saw it too from considerable distance away..... so what was it? I know exactly (well the next day I did, but I didn't jump to strange light = spaceship = aliens) but I will let you do some internet searching. US military is a good start...
To the kids it was a UFO (like aliens) I mean what else travels in perfect formation through the night sky?

Many years ago I met Robert Schaeffer who had written a book called UFOs the Final Verdict. He researched the historically best known "events" Meticulously tracing the stories as best he could to the source and in every case he came across the stories had grown their own legs even when a perfectly normal explanation had been arrived at.

How many everyday people saw the horizon glow of Comet McNaught and believed they were seeing a UFO - heaps that I met.

How about the farmer who saw the dump and burn of F111s over Riverfire over Brisbane from more than a hundred km away and thought they were UFOs...

I ask again, gazillions of mobile cameras all over the world..... so where are they? Even if you accept the amateur astronomer rarely looks skyward then this more than blows any argument away. Not a shred of hard evidence, nothing.

PeterM.