The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis for the UFO phenomenon should be taken seriously.

Thank you for accepting my challenge. I've had to edit this quite a bit to get it under the character limit, so hopefully there are no glaring errors or omissions. I apologize if there are. I would like to start by addressing the question of the likely relative age of our civilization to that of a hypothetical civilization originating extra-terrestrially. Our Sun is believed to be 4.6 billion years old(1). The average age of stars in our galaxy is believed to be 6.3 billion years(2), with the oldest known star in our galaxy (Methuselah) being nearly as old as the universe itself is believed to be, at around 13 billion years (3). This means that if our planet is taken as typical (taking about 1 billion years from the time the solar system formed to the first appearance of life, and then another 3.6 billion years, punctuated by a few mass extinction events, finally producing an "intelligent" species), then the odds are that an intelligent species evolving in another star system would have appeared about 1.8 billion years ago, on average. Even if it turns out that 3.6 billion years is a relatively short time to go from single cell to star flight, the mere fact that we have been a space-faring organism for a bit more than 19,000 DAYS would imply that were we to encounter another space-faring entity, the odds are astronomical that they would be much older than us. If you assign a number to each grass plant in a well-established yard and select one that has just sprouted this morning, the odds are that if you randomly select another one, it will be much older than the first. Now I'd like to address your third paragraph in which you brought up SETI and it's inability to detect recognizable and repeatable patterns in electromagnetic radiation such as we suspect would be produced by civilizations similar to our own. It is certainly possible that there are no other civilizations to be detected. This doesn't seem likely, however, given the ubiquity of complex organic compounds in the universe(4) and given that a recent analysis by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics of data collected by the Kepler space telescope, concluded that we should expect about 6% of red-dwarf stars in our galaxy to have "Earth-sized planets in the 'habitable zone,'"(5). Since about 75% of the 100-400 billion stars in our galaxy are red dwarfs, if this analysis is correct, we should expect that there are between 4.5 billion and 18 billion habitable planets around these stars. Of course this only takes into account red dwarf stars and also ignores the possibility of habitable moons, or of habitable planets/moons outside the "habitable zone" via volcanic or radioactive heat (such as what may make moons like Europa, Ganymede, and others in our solar system potentially habitable). In any event, we should expect A) that the ingredients of life are everywhere, and B) conditions that would allow life to appear should exist in at least 4 and a half billion planets in our galaxy. The next question is how common is the formation of life given the confluence of these two factors in one place? Unfortunately, we can't be sure. Which is a good place to talk about Enrico Fermi. Enrico Fermi was an atomic physicist who, after considering what seemed like the near certainty that intelligent life must exist in our galaxy, famously asked, "where are they?" Here are some possible answers to that question: A) They don't exist. Or are extremely rare. We're wrong to suspect that life can form and/or progress so easily into intelligent species, or such species do not last long beyond finding a means allowing for their own self-destruction. We are unique, or exceedingly rare. and/or B) They exist but do not employ electromagnetic radiation in the same way we do (or only use it briefly or sporadically). and/or C) We have simply not recognized information that does exist in the electromagnetic radiation we've analyzed, or such information makes use of multiple frequencies or frequencies that we're not paying enough attention to. and/or D) One or more space-faring civilizations have already colonized or at least explored our galaxy and perhaps established "listening posts," and is/are aware of our civilization, but does not openly contact us. If this is the case we must either assume that A and/or B and/or C is also true, or that the civilization(s) has/have the ability and desire to isolate our civilization from others who employ electromagnetic radiation in similar ways to us. It does seem reasonable to assume that if any "advanced" civilizations have emerged from the billions of possible worlds in our galaxy with a desire and ability to explore and colonize the galaxy, that by now, our galaxy should have been colonized at least a hundred times over or so. By way of explanation for that statement, here's an interesting summary of the results of a predictive model of hypothetical galaxy colonization by Thomas Hair and Andrew Hedman: "The authors work with an algorithm that allows modeling of the expansion from the original star, running through iterations that allow emigration patterns to be analyzed in light of these prospects. It turns out that in 250 iterations, covering 250,000 years, a civilization most likely to emigrate will travel about 500 light years, for a rate of expansion that is approximately one-fourth of the maximum travel speed of one percent of the speed of light, the conservative figure chosen for this investigation. A civilization would spread through the galaxy in less than 50 million years. These are striking numbers. Given five billion years to work with, the first civilization to develop starfaring capabilities could have colonized the Milky Way not one but 100 times. The idea that it takes billions of years to accomplish a galaxy-wide expansion fails the test of this modeling." (6) In light of such possibilities, maybe we should consider that the answer to Fermi's question is "D) They're here." At the very least, instead of asking "Where are they?" and leaving off there, maybe scientists should start by asking "Are they here?" Why? Because we have tentative observational data, supported by technological measurement, that appear to suggest that apparently technological objects of unknown origin occasionally maneuver within our atmosphere. And so to the cases... I will confine myself to a few cases that I have some familiarity with and find personally difficult to explain prosaically, all of which involve two or more credible (by my reckoning) eye-witnesses with confirmation by technological means (mostly radar) of aerial phenomena that appear to be under intelligent control and exhibiting characteristics that would seem to rule out human-operated craft. Unfortunately, I've had to use one-line summaries here accompanied by links to more in depth info. (I've used ufoevidence.org extensively here as they tend to have decent summaries). 1. Two UFOs observed visually by experienced combat air crew and tracked concurrently on air and ground radar. http://www.nicap.org... 2. "From October 1989 throughout 1990, hundreds of reports of lighted objects, frequently described as enormous and triangular in shape were recorded in Belgium." Air and ground radar tracking. http://www.ufoevidence.org... 3. Lakenheath 1956: UFO tracked by ground and aerial radar, with ground and air observations and aerial maneuvering in response to military aircraft. http://www.ufoevidence.org... 4. Air Force RB-47 with six officers followed for 700 miles by UFO http://ufoevidence.org... 5. Air and Ground radar tracking of large ufo over alaska, "confirmed by FAA Division Chief." http://www.ufoevidence.org... 6. Several UFOs seen and tracked by multiple aircraft and ground radar. http://www.ufoevidence.org... 7. Two F-4Us dogfight with UFO over Tehran. http://www.ufoevidence.org... 8. Sheriffs and 100 witnesses see UFOs over Lake Erie. Tracked by ground radar. http://www.ufoevidence.org... 9. "F-86 intercepts and shoots at saucer-shaped UFO" http://www.ufoevidence.org... 10. US Naval Reserve flight has near miss with large UFO http://www.ufoevidence.org... Bonus Cases (since I have a few characters left after editing...) These are cases I know little about or that do not satisfy all of the requirements I set above, but that seem interesting enough to include: 11. "The Malmstrom Air Force Base UFO/Missile Incident" http://www.ufoevidence.org... 12. Kapustin Yar Incident involving Soviet nuclear site http://www.ufoevidence.org... 13. F-89 with crew of 2 vanishes after intercepting UFO http://www.ufoevidence.org... 14. The Coyne army helicopter case http://www.ufoevidence.org... 15. SU-22 fires on, has dogfight with UFO http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com... 16. "The Sea Fury Incident" http://www.ufoevidence.org... I will leave off here as I'm afraid I might be overwhelming you with reading material. Once again, thank you for taking the time to debate me on this issue. I look forward to your response. References: (1) http://en.wikipedia.org... (2)Strangely, I haven't located any solid source for this number, but I do find it referenced quite a bit, and apparently this figure once appeared at this link: http://astrobiology.nasa.gov... I also found a reference to the figure 6.3 billion years at this link (under the Time Life section): http://www.donaldsauter.com... (3) http://en.wikipedia.org... (4) http://phys.org... (5) http://www.cfa.harvard.edu... (6) http://www.centauri-dreams.org...