What [if anything] does the existence of unsolved cases really prove?

In a conversation with TheChronus at
www.abovetopsecret.com...
I derailed the discussion about Dolan with a new thought,

I don't dispute the observation that a fraction of reports have not been explained.

I'm asking you for the significance of that.

In a hypothetical universe where there WAS no genuinely anomalous phenomenon occurring, do you subconsciously assume that ALL reports WOULD be explained? That was the question you passed over, so I'm asking it again.

This isn't a trick question. It highlights what could be an unavoidable fog-factor of undeterminability of all human-related activities, ranging from missing persons and murder down to missing keys and socks. Everyday life demonstrates to us that the existence of a residue -- I use the term deliberately and non-prejudicially -- of 'unexplainED' events cannot alone be reasonably used to demand the existence of a fundamentally non-explainABLE stimulus.

Jonjonj replied: “In such a universe how could there be any reports?”


My response: “So -- the existence of reports of human levitation, communication with the dead, fairies and leprechauns, spontaneous human combustion, are all impossible unless SOME of the reports are accurate?”

Jonjonj in turn:

No, you posited a universe in which NO anomalous events occur, in such a universe you are suggesting that all reports would be explained. What you ignore is the fact that there would be no such reports, as nothing is happening.

Or perhaps you are suggesting our universe is such a universe and all reports are simply false. At least that is what I understand from what you wrote.

And I came back with

"In such a universe you are suggesting that all reports would be explained" -- Just the opposite.

I am asking questions. I recoil from such judgmental terms as 'false', here.

The direction i'm going is that in any genre of activity there might be a 'natural' level of garble that prevents every single story from being explained naturally, without recourse to ANY extraordinary stimuli at all related to the perceptions being reported.

Your argument seems to be that without a REAL phenomenon in at least a few cases, nobody would EVER think they were describing any phenomenon of any type that they could imagine.

By extension, doesn't such an argument [please clarify] produce a proof of the existence of God, because so many people believe they have encountered Him, at least a few of the stories MUST be authentic?

Maybe we ought to move this discussion to a thread of its own?

We are now caught up. Where does this lead?

I shall post the comment I made in the other thread here as it seems to be a more relevant place to post.

I hope this is not against the T&C's of the site.

So you are saying that in a universe where NO anomalous events ever occur there would still be reports of anomalous events that would be unexplainable, either by known physics, or by simple misunderstanding of the underlying stimuli?

You may be correct about this deserving a thread of its own.

I have not however seen evidence, whether by radar, video or audio that suggests the existence of god to the degree that can be attributed to the phenomena of ufos, just to take one aspect of unexplained phenomena.

My argument is not in fact that there must be some truth to the rumour simply because there are a "few" cases that prove the rule. My argument is that the weight of evidence, if presented in any other field except the "unexplained" field, would be investigated to satiety of both physics and philosophy. That however isn't being, nor ever has been achieved. Rather strange set of circumstances that, don't you think?

My question might be something like this.

Is the lack of any real, scientifically (western) recognised research an indicator of a lack of evidence? Or is it evidence of a lack of investigation?

originally posted by: Jonjonj
My question might be something like this.

Is the lack of any real, scientifically (western) recognised research an indicator of a lack of evidence? Or is it evidence of a lack of investigation?

It is neither, it is nothing more than the continued operation of an official government policy to deny UFOs for it own purposes.

(Actually, they haven't denied them for decades. They have simply said that such reports are not considered a threat to our national security. A nice, plausible denial spin that seems true enough. But what/how do they know to say that?)

a reply to: JimOberg

Oh Jim,

Are you saying that you truly think NONE of the stories out there are true?

I think there are a lot of people who have seen the unexplainable, myself included. You may scoff at that, and I certainly couldn't prove anything to save my life.

So in this circle of "unexplained aerial phenomenon" or "unexplained flying objects," would you concede that there may be very "true" (as in something physical and real in the objective world has been witnessed) stories that simply are not able to be investigated? Or do you think all of the things people say are simply bunk? I'm curious, as I really don't know the answer to that.

I can tell you that "something IS out there," but I really don't expect you to believe me, and I'm okay with that.

Thank you.

- AB

It leaves us with the same old talking heads making a few bucks, more often than not, endlessly repeating the same old tales on TV for an audience that has , for the most part, already made up their minds about whose "propaganda" they side with?

The very title of this thread is inaccurate.

The inference drawn from the title is that there are two categories of UFO events:

1. Solved, where the UFO is established to be something conventional.

Or

2. Unsolved.

The reality of the situation is quite different, and these two choices are really just a Hobson's choice. Not a choice at all. The only people who benefit from limiting the discussion to these two 'answers' are people who wish to deny that alien contact has happened and is happening.

People like Jim Oberg here, who has spent years trying to deny the reality of alien contact.
Now he comes in and starts this thread asking if 'unsolved' cases matter at all.

Nice try.

What Jim doesn't want to acknowledge is that there is a third choice:

3. Solved, where the UFO is a vehicle of highly advanced technology, created and piloted by highly advanced non-human beings.

This is the case for thousands of UFO events. Maybe millions. It's hard to put a number on it for many very good reasons, and for some bad reasons.
I myself have encountered these aliens throughout my life, as did my family, for decades. I first encountered these alien beings in 1966.

Don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise who was not present at these events.

Ask any judge, prosecutor or defense attorney about the value of such first- hand accounts in a court of law and you will learn that they are the least reliable and consistently the most subjective of all evidence types.

The second- or third-hand recounting of feverishly related long ago tales in ufology are no less suspect.

Please spare us the sublime (the MJ 12 hoax documents) and the ridiculous (the Roswell slides hoax). Rational adults are offended and children are deceived and manipulated by such hackneyed marketing schemes.

All that being said, I do believe in the ufo phenomena since I have had my own experience of a fairly close airborne anomaly sighting. I just don't believe in much, if anything, a commercial ufologist says.

originally posted by: FireMoon
It leaves us with the same old talking heads making a few bucks, more often than not, endlessly repeating the same old tales on TV for an audience that has , for the most part, already made up their minds about whose "propaganda" they side with?

I absolutely agree, and it is much to my chagrin that this is the case.

The solution would be that the cases worthy of study were in fact studied by people whose weight in the scientific field were not so easily reproached.

In my opinion that is.

Wow that OP was hard to read with all your over the top fancy words...So an unexplained event is just waiting to be explained? I think that is your conclusion...in other words an unexplained event only proves it hasn't been explained yet. Ok, agree. While you are arguing that UFO believers use an unexplained event as evidence for alien visitation. Is that what we are talking about here?

I think this just points out your biased approach to investigating UFO's and Alien visitation.

a reply to: game over man

I feel your pain, I really do.
Let me explain what I think I have understood from Jim Oberg's premise.

Please understand first off, I have the absolute and utmost respect for him.

I have read many of his papers and whilst I may agree or disagree with the resolution, his integrity has never been in question, at least as far as I am concerned.

Anyway, in a nutshell, I think the real and only realisation Jim has come to is that some things can not be explained.

That is the end of it.

a reply to: Jonjonj

Well written! I lol'd!

2nd

a reply to: LiteraryJourney

You really should share your experience, it all adds up at the end sir.
I am sure that there are many, myself included, who would like to hear it.

a reply to: Jonjonj Oh boy. Now I did it. jk. Well, let me stew on it for a bit. My experience (actually a couple of experiences) is not appropriate for this particular thread. And, I think it may be kind of pompous of me to start a new thread simply to tell about my experiences. But, yes, it is interesting. No sightings of ET or anything. Just a couple of incredible, one very close, sightings of the strangest most anomalous silent aircraft one could ever imagine. The fact I, and other witnesses, believe there to be some common denominator, a continuation if you will, in these sightings (besides being unidentifiable aircraft) make it all the more interesting. To me at least. Please forgive the thread drift.

a reply to: LiteraryJourney

It is quite the opposite of pompous, it is the very reason for the existence of this site.

But I understand if you choose not to share, that is also the reason for this site.

originally posted by: game over man....
I think this just points out your biased approach to investigating UFO's and Alien visitation.

Duh!! Of COURSE it's biased. As ALL approaches to revolutionary interpretations should be.

What did you expect, a level playing field?

a reply to: JimOberg

Here we go again, pretending that the 'unsolved' cases are only unsolved because we don't have enough information to identify the cause....

Let's not pretend that. Because that supposition is false. Rubbish, actually. And it was shown to be so over 6o years ago. USAF Project Blue Book Special Report 14. Or, just 'SR14'.

A quick recap:
-- done by Battelle for U.S. Air Force in the early 1950s, covering almost 3,000 Blue Book cases. The most rigorous statistical study of UFOs to date.

-- multiple scientists were needed in order to label a UFO 'Unknown', & they did so only after ruling out all other explanations, natural or man-made.

-- there were separate categories for 'Unknown' objects vs. cases where there was 'Insufficient Information' to make an identification. That is hugely important. It contradicts the basis of this thread.

-- the SR14 sightings characterized as having Excellent data quality ended up having 33% Unknowns; 4.2% of all Excellent data quality sightings were categorized as Insufficient Information. The Unknowns, in other words, are not Unknown simply because we didn't have enough information. They're different in some significant way.

-- Battelle said that the probability was "less than 1 percent" that the Unknowns were merely misidentified or not-yet-identified Knowns. Less than 1%. (Substantially less, actually.) So again, the Unknowns were special. They were fundamentally different from the Knowns. The Unknowns traveled faster, or maneuvered faster, or were a different shape, different color, different size, etc., or maybe several of those. There was enough data present to identify an Unknown object... if it were identifiable. But the Unknowns weren't identifiable. Unknown = 'Unidentifiable, Despite Having Had Enough Data'.

-- Most of the SR14 Unknowns were observed for a significant period of time: the 31-60 second category, or 1-5 minutes category. So don't be fooled; these are not fleeting glimpses of distant lights in the nighttime sky. The Report found that the longer the observation and more complete the data, the more likely it was that the object was a true Unknown. So again, the Unknowns are not Unknown due to bad or incomplete data. And they would NOT have been identified if only there were more information. The Unknowns were actually mostly unidentifiable. Somehow strange. Different.

Please don't take my word for it. Again, go read the Report yourselves, here. Take special note of the methods/assumptions in the Conclusion section, and how that Conclusions section is very much at odds with the Report's own Data sections... something we'd see again in the Condon Report.

To summarize... again... and I'm wondering if it's been emphasized enough: the Unknowns were and are NOT just misidentified Knowns. They would not be solved if only there were more information. And this report basically proved it. 60 years ago. The Unknowns were unique, in a statistically significant way. Many of them continue to be.

UFO deniers have had 60 years to review Special Report 14's data. 60 years to come up with a proper and convincing skeptical response to it. 60 years to accept that 'Unknown' really pretty much meant 'So Darn Strange and Unique That It's Unbelievable'. 60 years. And I've yet to see a skeptic adequately address it. I doubt they'll start now. Perhaps the thread will go 30 pages, where they try to nudge the topic back into their comfort zone. Just watch. I guarantee you, some UFO denier, someone who's missing the point, will go and paste the text from the Air Force's conclusions in here. Disingenuous. As if that means anything. The point is the raw data, the mathematics/statistics of it, not the Air Force's subsequent force fitting.

A related and interesting footnote: The Air Force lied about Special Report 14 in 1955. They lied in a major way. And they could get away with it because they kept the Report classified. Though 20% of the UFOs were labeled true Unknowns (in Special Report 14), and despite its two distinct categories (Unknown vs. Insufficient Information), the USAF press release said only 3% of the cases were Unknowns. And better yet, just as skeptics still try to do today -- like here, in this thread -- the Air Force said that they probably could've identified even those remaining 3% if only they had more information. And that is clearly contradicted by the untainted data in the body of the Report.

60 years. That's how long people have had to digest the fact that the assumption you're being asked to make in this thread is simply not correct. Because the Unknowns are different and distinct from the Knowns. It's right there in the data, in the most complete statistical study of UFOs ever done.

I'm genuinely not sure of the point of this 'exercise' we're being asked to engage in here. The exercise's effect (or purpose?) is simply to plant a false inference, one that was refuted long ago. Don't fall for it.

originally posted by: JimOberg

originally posted by: game over man....
I think this just points out your biased approach to investigating UFO's and Alien visitation.

Duh!! Of COURSE it's biased. As ALL approaches to revolutionary interpretations should be.

What did you expect, a level playing field?

This is not the response I expected, in any way. Either clarify or say nothing.

originally posted by: Scdfa.....

People like Jim Oberg here, who has spent years trying to deny the reality of alien contact.

You gotta realize that Scdfa is utterly clueless about my real assessments and just makes things up -- like here.

I cannot disprove ET presence locally. I should never try, and should be rightfully lambasted if caught doing it.

If I were to argue that NO anomalous phenomena were possible, or were NOT causing any of the reports, it would be foolish overreach unjustified by logic or evidence -- just the sort of knee-jerk closed-mindedness I'm often accused of.

I've seen no convincing arguments that advanced ETI or any non-human technology CANNOT be present on Earth.

The proper end of the puzzle to grab onto, for me, is to ask what the reports themselves prove -- are we driven to require the existence of fundamentally unknown phenomena to explain the decades of stories and traces and blips?

That could well turn out to be provable.

But first we need to get a handle on the 'normal background noise'. I'm trying to find better ways to explain what I mean, if the terminology stretches anyone's vocabulary [you know who you are], consider it an opportunity to increase your word power.

In no other arena of human activity -- from crimes, disappearances, accidents all the way to missing socks -- is the existence of unexplained events considered sufficient proof of the need to posit a NEW and hitherto unrecognized instrumentality. Ask ourselves -- why should UFO reports be ant different?

No need to imagine a universe with NO 'true UFOs', just imagine they STOP showing up for a year.

How would we notice the difference?

originally posted by: Jonjonj

This is not the response I expected, in any way. Either clarify or say nothing.

Check out the concept of 'onus probandi'.