[caldrail]

The problem with relative levels of technology is that we only have a hazy preconception of what might be possible. Remember all the optimsitic predictions of the twenties and thirties? I still don't own a jet car. Also, as Arthur C Clarke pointed out, technology of a sufficiently high level is indistinguishable from magic. Now assuming there's any truth to this UFO mythos, we have to assume they have a higher level of technology to us simply because they can do stuff we can't. For us, space travel is slow and hugely dangerous. For all our cleverness, we're still setting forth onto a dark sea in a metal equivalent to a cowskin coracle.

There are alternative views of course. Some believe the little grey aliens so often quoted are a future evolution of us, popping back by time machine to do their history and biology homework. Others believe that it's the Antlanteans, our fabled dim distant ancestors, whose lost civilisation still hangs on by a thread in some remote spot.

On the other hand, there are those who spotted that I wasn't being serious in the first place.