Why does the U.F.O. skeptic treat all all evidence as equally not evidence?

This is the part that makes no sense as you debate skeptics on this subject. It's one thing to be skeptical and you should be because all cases aren't equal. Some cases are are very weak while some cases are very strong.

Some skeptics seem to be saying there's no evidence of extraterrestrial visitation in the form of an alien or a probe.

When you look at the evidence it's really voluminous in this area as opposed to theories in some scientific fields of study that don't have anywhere near as much evidence than in this area.

There doesn't seem to be any common sense coming from skeptics when looking into these areas. Like I said all evidence has to be treated equally as not evidence when common sense tells you that you need to weigh the evidence. You can't treat all evidence the same.

You hear that eyewitness accounts are unreliable but eyewitness accounts aren't equally unreliable. Again, this is just common sense. Some eyewitness accounts will be unreliable but there will be those that are very strong and should be given added weight. The skeptic seems to think when it comes to this subject human beings can't use their ability to think and weigh the evidence. This is something that we do all the time.

In fact, science used eyewitness accounts all the time before they had the technology to look into certain areas. For example with comets or meteors.

Although meteors have been known since ancient times, they were not known to be an astronomical phenomenon until early in the 19th century. Prior to that, they were seen in the West as an atmospheric phenomenon, like lightning, and were not connected with strange stories of rocks falling from the sky. Thomas Jefferson wrote "I would more easily believe that (a) Yankee professor would lie than that stones would fall from heaven."[53] He was referring to Yale chemistry professor Benjamin Silliman's investigation of an 1807 meteorite that fell in Weston, Connecticut.[53] Silliman believed the meteor had a cosmic origin, but meteors did not attract much attention from astronomers until the spectacular meteor storm of November 1833.[54] People all across the eastern United States saw thousands of meteors, radiating from a single point in the sky. Astute observers noticed that the radiant, as the point is now called, moved with the stars, staying in the constellation Leo.[55]

en.wikipedia.org...

Why aren't there any ASTUTE OBSERVERS when it comes to eyewitness accounts for alien abductions, close encounters or any U.F.O. sighting?

Why does the U.F.O. skeptic treat all observers as equally unreliable when common sense tells you this isn't the case?

You have things like trace evidence and people like Stephen Hawking saying Aliens Almost Certaintly Exist.

Why wouldn't other civilizations do the same thing we're doing? Why wouldn't they send probes or either other entities to Earth the same way we send rovers and satellites to other planets and eventually we will go to those planets that could be more suitable for life based on biosignatures.

Is this just the hubris of mankind's ego?

I can respect someone that has reached a different conclusion than I have based on the AVAILABLE EVIDENCE but I don't respect the the lack of common sense in these areas.

You hear blanket statements like eyewitness accounts are unreliable when there will be eyewitness accounts from ASTUTE OBSERVERS that are very reliable. There's no reason or logic just a need to wrap up every account as equally unreliable and it's all equally not evidence.

That's really the only way you can treat it. If something could be alien but is also explainable by the mundane than it can't be proof of the former. There isn't one thing on earth that anyone can point to and state "That is alien". Eyewitness accounts are not proof because the circumstances that were witnessed haven't ever been reproduced and documented, it doesn't matter how credible the account or the person is.

It is frustrating and disheartening when you feel so strongly. It took me a long time to realize that this is the truth. Hopefully someday in our lifetimes that proof will present itself.

Simple - eyewitness accounts are anecdotal, and common sense is not the scientific method. Show me one piece of evidence that is scientifically verifiable, or a test with an outcome that is repeatable and can withstand the scientific method, either of which that show positive proof of alien visitation, then you have my attention.

a reply to: redtic

Here we go with skeptics throwing around the scientific method with no idea as to what they're talking about.

That's seems to be the default position. You think if you say SCIENTIFIC METHOD that means something. You don't have to have scientifically verifiable evidence in order to have evidence that supports the underlying hypothesis or theory. As a Theoretical Physicist, it get's under my skin the way people use this term whenever they want to look like they're being scientific.

We study things like the multiverse, holographic principle, Hawking Radiation, inflation and more and there's physicist that accept these things based on the available evidence even though there isn't any scientifically verifiable evidence. In many cases, you just don't have the technology to test these things and you draw conclusion based on the available evidence.

So in this area, why isn't extraterrestrial visitation a valid theory to explain the aerial phenomena of U.F.O.'s based on the available evidence?

Eyewitness accounts are very powerful and it just lacks common sense to say all eyewitness accounts are equally unreliable or equally not evidence.

a reply to: neoholographic

First off I will admit I did not read your entire post. I believe that I got gest of your question from the first half.

I believe in UFOs completely because of a encounter when I was young. But I am highly skeptical of most claims in part because of CGI, people wanting their 15 minutes of fame and now because big money can be made off hoaxes.

My threshold of belief is under 5% of claims. But I still believe.

Well for one reason, if evidence was given, we would no longer be the dominant species. If ,perhaps, it was proven that we are the zoo animals in the zoo, how horrific an outcome would that be. Those who believed the earth was flat , could not be convinced. Those who will believe will believe, those who don't ,won't The never ending conundrums that whirl like the dervish.

a reply to: neoholographic

Well, then, I guess we just have different standards for accepted knowledge. If you believe, based on the "available evidence", that we have been/are being visited by aliens, then kudos to you. I'll admit, I don't exhaustively study the subject, but I do have an interest in it and have looked into a lot of this so-called evidence, and it doesn't hold up to allow me to accept the ET hypothesis. Agree to disagree, I guess. Yes, there's sh*t tons of anecdotal evidence out there - what emphasis you put on that I guess is up to the individual.

I've seen all I need to see to know they are real phenomenon.
They do seem to have some sort of intelligence involved.
Beyond that it is all speculation.

originally posted by: Greathouse
a reply to: neoholographic

First off I will admit I did not read your entire post. I believe that I got gest of your question from the first half.

I believe in UFOs completely because of a encounter when I was young. But I am highly skeptical of most claims in part because of CGI, people wanting their 15 minutes of fame and now because big money can be made off hoaxes.

My threshold of belief is under 5% of claims. But I still believe.

This is exactly right!

You should be skeptical of most claims but it lacks common sense to label all eyewitness accounts as equally unreliable or equally not evidence. Science has used ASTUTE OBSERVERS in the past while dealing with aerial phenomena and there's no reason why you can't use common sense to weigh the available evidence.

There is no actual evidence. If there were, then nobody would question it. Anecdotal stories are not evidence.

I think mostly knee-jerk reactions, others narrow minded or good ol star hunting. I'm primarily a skeptic in regards to aliens if we're talking ET's. There is something however, that seems to envelope the whole of humanities history that can easily be described as woo-woo or inner dimensional of sorts. That and some seriously deep deep black project stuff.

The old saying "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" comes to mind here....

However, what is a "extraordinary claim"? What is "extraordinary evidence"? Seems to me that both of these commonly used terms are subjective. To a skeptics credit, they simply want personal and tangible proof of something, in this case UFO/Aliens, before committing to a belief. I would not discount their convictions and call it less than common sense to discard what they require to over-write their belief system. It's quite simple really, "you want me to believe something I have seen NO tangible PROOF of? No thank you..." I fully understand that.

However, I personally think the UFO?Alien phenomena is far to widespread to completely discard out of hand. I simply find it just shy of impossible for every single account, spanning back throughout time, to be 100% made up false memories, liars, misguided opinion, and tomfoolery. I decide to put faith in humanity by and large, accepting the personal testimonies of those whom I deem credible. Have I seen a UFO/Alien? No. Have I seen a single shred of undeniable proof? Nope. But the overwhelming evidence (albeit circumstantial) and personal testimonies have persuaded me to agree that the possibility is real.

To me, that is how a real skeptic should react to the UFO/Alien topic. Understand that real personal and tangible proof may not be available to everyone, but there is enough out there to keep an open mind. Those who discount, disregard, and outright reject every single mention of UFO/Aliens are not skeptics, they are something all together different.

i know people say that no way aliens could travel them vast distances at that speed and survive but as people have pointed out it could just be a probe like we have sent to many planets.

it is possible that they have sent a probe beyond stars,just cause we haven,t managed it yet doesn,t mean they haven,t.

a reply to: neoholographic

I've seen things myself that I can't explain, that I feel were alien... but I've seen other things that I thought were, I was sure were... only to find out that they weren't. Iridium flares got me for a long time... lol. I don't even trust my own eyewitness accounts because there could easily be something I hadn't thought of, or something as simple as my eyes playing tricks on me.

I know what I feel but I can't say that I know what I saw.

a reply to: HomeBrew

This is exactly my point and yes it's less than common sense.

I can refute something without acting like all of the eyewitness accounts are equally unreliable and equally not evidence.

For instance, I'm skeptical when it comes to Bigfoot. I would never say that all eyewitness accounts in this area isn't evidence to support the existence of Bigfoot. What I say is there isn't enough evidence for me to reach the conclusion that Bigfoot exists.

With U.F.O.'s many skeptics act like there's no evidence and all eyewitness accounts are equally unreliable. This just lacks basic common sense. The reason is because of belief. They want extraordinary evidence and that's just subjective and they can just move the bar further everytime any evidence is presented. With ufology there's a ton of evidence from eyewitness accounts to trace evidence.

Common sense tells you that you can't just dismiss all eyewitness accounts as equally unreliable and equally not evidence.

a reply to: Kali74

I can understand this but this is your subjective experience. There are those who are confident in what they saw and they give a detailed account as to what they saw. Not all of them are crackpots and wishful thinkers. You have pilots, police and more.

At the end of the day, you can't just accept all of these cases but you can't weigh them as equally unreliable and equally not evidence. That makes no sense.

Science had to rely on Observers in the past when it came to aerial phenomena.

Although meteors have been known since ancient times, they were not known to be an astronomical phenomenon until early in the 19th century. Prior to that, they were seen in the West as an atmospheric phenomenon, like lightning, and were not connected with strange stories of rocks falling from the sky. Thomas Jefferson wrote "I would more easily believe that (a) Yankee professor would lie than that stones would fall from heaven."[53] He was referring to Yale chemistry professor Benjamin Silliman's investigation of an 1807 meteorite that fell in Weston, Connecticut.[53] Silliman believed the meteor had a cosmic origin, but meteors did not attract much attention from astronomers until the spectacular meteor storm of November 1833.[54] People all across the eastern United States saw thousands of meteors, radiating from a single point in the sky. Astute observers noticed that the radiant, as the point is now called, moved with the stars, staying in the constellation Leo.[55]

Why aren't there any ASTUTE OBSERVERS when it comes to U.F.O.'s? Do they all have to be idiots that are mistaken?

The problem here of course is the definition of sceptic. There are those who truly are sceptical, in that they look at all the angles, read all the reports and finally come to a conclusion based, on balance, on the weight of evidence. These I would call true sceptics.
There is also another group of sceptics, composed of those who look at all the angles, read all the reports and finally come to a conclusion based on imbalance, that which is their predisposed position previous to analysis (bias), or an in-built, rigid regimen of denial/subjectivity based on an exterior force (denier).
I love debunking and the whole idea of it. I enjoy it when someone comes up with a completely rational and logical resolution to a phenomena.
I wish that were the case with all "sceptics", but it clearly is not.

Well as someone who already knows ufology is real, there are those working with the shadow space program and those who are Good watching over, all sides, and some of it is their satanic type entity stuff as well, I tend to see skeptics as 2 types, those who are trying to muddy the waters and shut down information on agenda, and those who have religious or other reasons to not want to believe, or who have not experienced anything out of the ordinary so they just don't want to rock any boats and care about public opinion and what the Jone's think. Whereas I don't care what the Jone's think or anyone for that matter.

I have no favorites when it comes to wanting people to pull away from endorsing this evil world and starting to turn their lives around by caring about others, and striving to go home. I want the Black Ops to go home. I want the religious fanantics to go home, I want the ones who are afraid of paranormal or haven't experienced it to go home and I want the Jone's to go home and graduate this lower realm to wonderful happiness and eutopias and be themselves forever. Don't play favorites that way. So I will continue to speak of my experiences and my memories and will continue to keep poking them all with sticks, and speaking up.

There is plenty of evidence that UFOs exist. In fact who actually disputes UFOs exist? If you, me or anyone else witnesses an object in the sky we cannot recognise then what else can it be?

But when you say

Some skeptics seem to be saying there's no evidence of extraterrestrial visitation in the form of an alien or a probe. When you look at the evidence it's really voluminous in this area as opposed to theories in some scientific fields of study that don't have anywhere near as much evidence than in this area.

Well no there isn't volumes of evidence that UFOs are alien probes. Just that there are UFOs.

Yes there are stories with trace evidence. But these are not necessarily "alien". People who reported on these stories have associated them with aliens. Unless of course you believe the anecdotal stories that back in the 1950s -1970s almost all aliens where humanoid like from the nearby planets who landed and spoke to entirely random people. Then once our science advanced they became little grey guys abducting us with medical technology we surpassed about 20 years ago.

There is no reason to dismiss the existence of intelligent life out there in the vastness of the universe. Somewhere amongst the thousands of stories and sightings there may well be something truly alien waiting to be proven beyond all doubt. But, unless you have that proof beyond reasonable doubt to offer, then it becomes the same old debate. Absence of evidence may not be evidence of absence. But the volumes of evidence are also not definitive proof of aliens. Otherwise it would have become an accepted fact.

At this very moment the evidence for UFOs being extra-terrestrial spacecraft is no better than the evidence for God, Ghosts/Spirits of the dead, time slips, Demons, Lake Monsters, Bigfoot/Yeti , telepathy, fairies, and anything else supernatural.

However it does seem our scientific knowledge is now on the cusp of proving some form of extra-terrestrial life exists. When (if?) that day comes it will still not validate every single unexplained UFO story though.

a reply to: mirageman

Somewhere amongst the thousands of stories and sightings there may well be something truly alien waiting to be proven beyond all doubt. But, unless you have that proof beyond reasonable doubt to offer, then it becomes the same old debate. Absence of evidence may not be evidence of absence. But the volumes of evidence are also not definitive proof of aliens. Otherwise it would have become an accepted fact.

Is not this the crux of the matter? Can you name ANY study by mainstream science that has been given the funding, political liberty and international backing that a subject of such magnitude deserves? Even one. Please!!!

Let us not be mistaken here, this isn't the hunt for a theoretical particle here, this is a paradigm shift in the whole cosmos of possible realities.
I remit to the evidence, there IS no evidence, not because it does not exist, but because it has not been subjected to the rigour necessary to either prove or disprove its reality.
Old story, new words, nothing changes, shame on us.