Was an alien spotted near where I live?

The other day I was searching through Youtube looking for "alien caught on camera" videos (I actually do look for that stuff when I'm bored) one thing lead to another and I eventually came across this article about an alleged alien encounter that occurred not only in my home town... but also about only a mile or so from my home (although it happened over two years ago and nothing like this has occurred near here ever since).

Suffice to say that if I believed that this close encounter of the third kind actually did occurred (read about it here) I might be scared out of my mind. Of course I don't believe it. I believe it to be a hoax, and I'll explain why:

First, lets examine the description of the "alien" by the eye witness:

• There was a grey figure, about 6'5" with very long fingers, no eyes, mouth or nose that I could see. The grey color of it was lighter on the bottom, and faded into a darker shade towards it's chest. And it's fingers were at least 10" long.

Now that's a very detailed description of this creature. What detail that was not given was how far away this person was from the creature, or where exactly was this creature was (I'm well aware of the area and how it looks like having lived here all my life and driven past this place hundreds of times, so I can tell you after reading the report that the person gave is that either the person is a local as well, or has passed through that section of road enough times to remember what it looks like)? Was the creature on the hill in the wooded area, or in the middle of the road, or across the street at the little pond next to the apartments that are at that intersection, or on the side of the road?

Also it was at 2:00 PM in the summer time, and according to the report given, it states that:

• Traffic was at a stand still as there were at least 7 cars stopped as we watched it walk up a hill into the forest on the side of the road. Eventually a couple of Roanoke county police came, and one went into the woods, only to come out pale and shaking.

So there are atleast nine other eye witnesses to this incident, and probably a lot more than that, yet this is the only report about this alleged incident that I can find, and no one there (including the person whom made this report) had enough sense to take a picture of this creature? In fact why hasn't more people come forward and said that they saw something? I can understand maybe a few people not wanting to have anything to do with this incident, but certainly there must have been atleast more that one person willing to come forward and tell what they saw?

Now there is actually one alleged picture of this creature, and it was taken at night via a trail camera:

Photo Taken by Game Cam of Unknown Creature in Roanaoke, VA.

Photo Courtesy of Unsolved Mysteries and Paranormal Society of Virginia.

http://www.paranormalsocieties.com/view_society.cfm?id=1528 

Now besides the fact that this photo is blurry and really doesn't show anything (and before you point out that the year is wrong that really is not that significant as the person who set up this camera could have set the year wrong) there is no way of knowing if this photo really is from Roanoke, or from the area which is being talked about? This is the only photo provided and as far as I'm concerned it provides no proof that this incident even occurred at all, or that it's in any way connected with it.

Another thing that makes me believe that this is a hoax are the last to sentences of this report:

• I have searched all over the local news to see if there has been any reporting on this incident because where it happened is a very populated area about half a mile from Tanglewood shopping center (at the intersection of Ogden and Colonial Road). I have found nothing in the local news.

My question isn't why wasn't this in the news, but why didn't the person whom made this report tell the local news stations themselves? I would have if I thought it was real and not just a hoax, and that there were multiple eye witnesses, and that it was in the middle of the day time...

In conclusion I believe this to be a hoax. While the details of the creature is very descriptive, there's very little other information (such as where exactly the creature was when the person first spotted it, and how far away the person believes that they were from the creature). This, combined with the fact that no one else has come forward to back up this story, nor did the person themselves report this to the news, and the lack of a follow-up interview the try to get more information (and a note in the report did state that the person did provide full contact information) has lead me to conclude that this is a hoax.

7 Reasons why aliens haven't talked to us

For decades now we have been trying communicate with other intelligent life else where in the universe, or at the very least find proof that they are other intelligent life forms out there in the universe.

Despite all of our efforts through SETI and other programs like SETI, we still haven't found any proof that there are other intelligent life forms out there.

So why is it that despite all of our efforts to find and communicate with other intelligent life forms in the universe we still haven't done so?

Well, there are a few reasons why we haven't yet:

They don't exist.

As difficult (and statistically improbable) as it may seem to be, there is a very real (yet microscopic) possibly that the reason why aliens haven't talked to us yet is because their is no other life in the universe, or at the very least that there are no other worlds besides this one that has life on them that have evolved into intelligent life forms.

They're not advanced enough to communicate with us or get here.

One of the reasons why aliens may have never communicated with us or have come to our planet is because they are not technologically advanced enough to either travel to the stars, or create a communication system that would allow them to send out signals into interstellar space. This isn't very surprising since we are barely able to do this ourselves (By the way, we are able to travel to the stars, and we do have a technology that would allow us to do so if we were to give it the funding. It's called nuclear pulse propulsion).

Despite the fact that the universe is around 13.8 billion years old, there is no reason to believe that there are any other civilizations out there that are just as advanced, if not more advanced than we are, and that we may be the most advanced civilization in the universe. But, considering how old the universe is, there is also no reason to believe that there are no civilizations out there that are far more advanced than we are as well, and can easily get from one star to another.

They are able to communicate with us and even get here, they are just very far away.

Maybe they are able to travel between the stars, and even able to send out radio signals, but they just haven't gotten here because of one simple reason: distance.

The universe is a very vast place, and the fact is that unless you have a way to travel and/or communicate faster than the speed of light, it can take years, even centuries, for a radio signal or a space ship to get from one star system to another, so it is entirely possible that the reason why we have never found an alien radio signal, or that an alien space ship has never come here, is because it just hasn't reached us yet.

They are unaware of our existence.

One of the reasons why aliens have never communicated with us is the same reason why we haven't communicated with them: they don't know we are here.

It is entirely possible that an intelligent alien species has seen and heard our radio signals, and either can not figure out where it came from, or they can't understand it and dismiss it as natural phenomenon (which we could be doing with radio signals from space right now that we believe are natural radio signals given off by stars, but are really alien radio signals).

Plus, who is to say that they are even looking for other intelligent life out there like we are? For all that we know aliens might not even believe that it is possible for intelligent life to exist on other worlds, and thus aren't even trying to find other intelligent life forms out there in the universe.

They don't want to.

There is the very good possibility that the reason why aliens have yet to communicate with us is because they have no reason or desire to communicate with us.

This could be because of humans are to violent for them to wish to communicate with, or they may be xenophobic and have no desire to communicate with anyone.

There is also the very real possibility that we are just to primitive for them to consider it worth their time to communicate with. In fact we could be so primitive to them that...

They don't consider us to be intelligent.

Ever hear the old saying that the reason why aliens have never landed on Earth is because they are looking for intelligent life and they didn't find any here? Well, that could be the exact reason why aliens have never come here.

It is entirely possible that we could be so far below an alien species in terms of technology and intelligence that they don't even consider us to be intelligent life forms, and that they could consider themselves to be as far beyond us as we are beyond a chimpanzee.

They have laws that forbid them form communicating with us.

In the Star Trek universe there is this one law that I'm sure that every trekkie knows about: the Prime Directive.

The Prime Directive basically states that Starfleet may not interfere with the development of an alien civilization, particularly a more primitive one, even if the interference is for the betterment of that civilization (unless you happen to be Captain James T. Kirk, in which case it's apparently okay).

It is entirely possible (even likely) that an advanced alien civilization have their own version of the Prime Directive, and are thus forbidden by their own laws from communicating with us, and are limited to just studying us.