I believe many things. First, I believe there is other life out there in the universe, and it's likely not all of it is Intelligent. It's also likely that some of it is.
Second, I believe I've seen a UFO before. On two occasions, though not as close up as the OP. Three occasions if you count the Arizona Lights.
I was about 25 minutes outside of Phoenix the night of the lights. It was pretty spectacular. I was 17 at the time, and me and some friends were there for a fund-raiser for an organization. This organization does leadership and public speaking courses for those who are nominated. I was nominated when I was 15, and it was a life-changing experience. So were the Arizona Lights, as they've come to be known. This was the 2007 recurrence of them.
We were on our way back to the hotel. Nothing special, we had to pay for our own lodgings, so we were staying at a Best Western or some-such, I don't remember. At the time, I was a lot more anti-social than I am now, so sitting in a car with 2 people right next to me really tended to make me uncomfortable, and looking out the window always helped. It didn't matter that they were my friends, it was the proximity... Anyway...
When I saw the lights, I asked the cabby to stop the car. I jumped out and just kinda stared at them. The three of them, (My two friends and the cabby,) thought I was nuts to be staring at some random-ass lights. They thought I'd lost it. The cabby, nice guy that he was, asked me what the hell was so special about a bunch of fireworks.
"They aren't fireworks." They all looked a lot more closely at that point. The lights just kind of sat there for a while... A long while... They moved a little, re-arranging themselves here and there, but never really moved all that much, relatively speaking.
Kevin finally asked, "What are they?"
"Those are UFO's bro."
The cabby proceeded to pull out his cellphone and call someone. Not sure if it was the Police or the FATA (Federal Air Traffic Authority,) but it was obviously one of those two. He had to try three times. We weren't the only ones seeing this... LOTS of people were seeing this. Tyler panicked. He was never an especially stable guy, and he has this alien phobia anyway. Kevin got nervous, but kept his cool, and started thinking about what we should do. The cabby ignored us and kept talking to the person on the other end of the phone-line. I just sat and watched. I morbidly understand several things about Alien Encounter Scenarios... If they want to kill us, they're going to. If not, we're fine. Most likely case is they're studying anyway, so no biggy. I told everyone it was nothing special and we should get back to the Hotel. The cabby never got off the phone the entire way there, and he kept watching the lights between fits of driving. He forgot to make us pay.
We could still see them from the front of the Hotel. There were fewer of them, but still there. I went inside and turned on the news. Tyler and Kevin watched the lights. Tyler had calmed down at some point during the ride home, but he was still clearly agitated. Kevin was as cool as a cucumber by this point.
Local news stations had no explanation for it at the time, and were confirming that the Military didn't either. The Feds later redacted their comments, saying they were flares. Flares don't hover. F-16's also make a shit-ton of noise... It was pretty damn quiet.
After that I was convinced... Humanity had just had a mid-range encounter of some kind.
Were they actually UFO's? I don't know. Maybe it was a unique solar or astral Phenomenon made manifest in the skies above Phoenix that night. Maybe they weren't UFO's but actual aliens, beings of energy, hovering in the sky. Maybe everyone in Phoenix at the time just had a mass hallucination. I believe they were UFO's.
My very first one was a 'Star' suddenly and without warning dropping out of sight. I'd gone with a friend and his family to Green River for a rafting trip. Nick, his uncle Mike, and I were walking up the trail to the top of the white-water staging area. It was late. Really late. I saw it first, something about it had caught my eye. A star, straight ahead of us, hovering a ways above the low mountain range. I was drawn to it, and consequently, so were they. That's when it almost vanished. I say almost, because it didn't just plain disappear. Rather, the 'Star,' moved up the horizon, relatively speaking about an inch, then shot straight downwards. We all saw it. We turned around and went back to the camp grounds.
The second time was near my home in Utah. My family was plagued with issues while I was growing up, and by the time I was 11, I'd developed Insomnia. This one I remember quite clearly, as it's the closest I've ever been to a potential UFO. I was 16, my parents were fighting, and I couldn't sleep, nor could I stand the yelling anymore. I snuck out and decided to take a walk. I live right in the foothills of the Rockies, so there are lots of nice little trails to go hiking on. It was nearly a full moon that night, so the lighting was decent for being that late.
I left at about 2 AM. By 2:30, I was perched atop the spot me and my friends used to call Frag Rock. We called it that because we'd go up there to play Paintball during the summer, and that particular area was a perfect kill-zone. I sat there for quite a while, about an hour, and then started back. It took me about half an hour to make my way back down, taking the long way this time. I was right at the foot of the mountain, about to turn onto the path back to the street when I saw it. A big shadow. A very big shadow, hovering maybe 2 or 3 miles off in the distance. It seriously looked like a saucer. It wasn't all that high up, and maybe 3 or 4 times the size of a helicopter. I thought nothing of it at first. I live an hour from Hill Air Force Base, figured it probably was a Huey or a Chinook doing night drills. But then it occurred to me that there was no noise. Even from that distance, I would've heard it, especially on a calm night like that, so close to the mountain where the sound would've been sure to bounce back. I took another look, and that's when it... Well, 'ran' up the side of the mountain, right to the top, and then sat there for about 3 seconds before shooting off into the sky. It took maybe 3 more seconds for it to dwindle completely out of sight.
I haven't had any UFO encounters since the Arizona Lights. About 4 years now. Despite all the time these memories have had to fade away, they haven't. I'm utterly convinced, there is other sentient, intelligent life, in not in our Galaxy, then out there somewhere, in the vast vast universe... And statistically speaking, there's gotta be at least one other intelligent civilization out there.
