Is there an organized effort to undermine the Aliens and UFOs forum?

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
This "tonality" witnessed here is happening within the broader UFO community at large. The overwhelming firehose of hoaxed, misinterpreted, and outright misrepresented videos of "UFO's" coming from YouTube, combined with a few sites dedicated exclusively to creating UFO hoaxes, has created an atmosphere of irritation and extreme distrust.

This seemed to start with the worldwide Alien/UFO hoax of Project Serpo (initiated by the people now with Project Camelot). That was the turning point of attitude in UFO-related topics.

Absolutely Right, S-O about Hoaxing and CGI of Aliens to UFOS within Youtube , The Videos Credibility now
his Hard to Prove.. in a amateur Level

What about The Others? , When People Rediscover OLD Films to VHS Tapes Converted to a PC Video Format, that People do Post .. Talking about The Films that CGI didn't exist or wasn't Popular as Im more Concern about The Documentary's from the 50s 60s 70s of Claimed Footage of UFO's Showing Questionable things. My Favorite is UFO: IT HAS BEGUN / Narrated by Rod Serling

UFOs: It Has Begun (1979)
www.imdb.com...

( MY Favorite Spot in the Documentary is when you Have Actual Officials that were there!.. Talking about the 1952 Washington DC Incident )


Who's Out There? Orson Wells
www.imdb.com...

In Search of... (1976–1982)
www.imdb.com...

Nice Story of Serpico with its Ebens . It lost its All Credibility When you Look at the Inventory List of Items !! LOL!! but I tried to give it a chance till then A Complete Fail , Yeah Lets Bring a 1950s Jeep to another World. and other Crap to A PLANET. Lost in the Void ! It Looks as if that, Group of Collage Teens has Conjured Up This Fabrication , The Company that did the TV Series of Outer Limits would of done a Better Job.

The Only thing Close of a Alien Exchange program. was in a Movie Called Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind which IMO Someone knew of Something , within the Movie we have Stanton Friedman , DR ALLAN Hynak , Dr Jacques Vallée In Frame Looking at the Visitors and Observing , The Exchange Program on Hand ! Im Curious to know where they got this Idea From, A Interstellar exchange Program?



MY Ideal for having anything Authentic and having credibility is Looking at The PAST
From Acutual Book's MAG's Digest's Flim's Reels to VHS of interviews & Documentary's to Dated PHOTOS from the Late 40s 50s 60s

My New Hobby is Vintage Pulp SCIFI Magazines & SCIFI Digest and Comparing of what it was Then, to what it is of why we know of Today .. Futurism , Predictions of yesterday. and what they possibly knew about UFOs and Aliens
& Future Inventions Back then..

Ever Looked Through Science Fiction Pulp Magazines ? With First Words Amazing , Astounding , Thrilling, Startling & Wonder in the Title, While looking through it Reading it and Looking at the illustrations and Front and Back Covers You will recognized Familiar things we Have Today or Seen or Heard of in The Ufology Realm.. Present Day

Just a Fraction of illustrations
Pulp
Wonder stories 1932



Digest
Galaxy 1954 ( Gladiator At Law )


The Cover... Resembles a Pc Tower with Keyboard and it Looks like a Hologram Device
a Gamer at the Controls ? tho,, the Keyboard is more likely a Keypunch Device fro Punch Cards .. as the Story Shows

Inspiration from Science Fiction Writers and A few Readers Turned Their Ideas into a Reality

Skeptic Overlord ,

A Site I Suggest you look at for a Better Understanding

Where Science Meets Fiction

Technovelgy
www.technovelgy.com...

originally posted by: KAOStheory
Yes.
Every single light you see in the sky is "not of this world," as you are told within 30 seconds of the start of every UFO documentary, and if it's a picture or video posted here, it's a blurd, it's a drone, and don't forget that chinese lanterns fly faster than jets and make 30 degree angled turns.

The problem is many members have shown that they don't seem to understand simple things like line of sight, perspective and may other basic things that happen around them which then tends to cloud their judgement of what they think they are actually are seeing.

a reply to: Tangerine

that's funny because I've said we are the redheaded stepchild of the aliens. I bet they feel some responsibility for us but we scare them. It would be a nice gesture on their part if they will at least allow us to use non-polluting technology

Awesome thread actually. Was expecting another 'lets all just get along' thing but honestly there have been some stand out posts by IsaacKoi, Brit, GUT and others. Nice to see some insight from mods and owners as well.

OP I hope you get a chance to glance at this:

I've had a bumpy ride at ATS honestly on this topic. In my early experience basic questions I might ask believers were treated with hostility or eye rolling. Some helpful people gave me some lists of books etc though one day and that was pretty great. On the other hand you tend to get crucified for having an opinion on a UFO that you don't slam dunk and that goes both ways. Is why I always take long breaks and don't post nearly as much there any more but I still like it.

When I first joined ATS it was frustrating how I kept inadvertently upsetting everyone and their dog or cat, but that's the experience at times of both sceptic and believer. The politics forum can be a bit similar ... If you hold an opinion on one subject, you're assumed to hold ten more.

It's an organized effort in that if a group of people start to get behind a certain claim or idea en masse people will critique and some enjoy making it their hobby. Don't take it personally, try to read people's infos for what it is, and get yourself a few buddy skeptics - people you deeply disagree with who aren't complete hostile jerks. I have some good friends who disagree with me on a bunch of topics on ATS and they really help.

a reply to: duaneology

Personally, I don't see where it's that much different than it has ever been. There have always been these alleged "experts" and deniers who have flooded sites like ATS as far back as I can recall.

A lot of the posts in this thread are dwelling on problems within ufology.

Identifying problems within ufology is a fine starting point - but what about solutions (or at least constructive suggestions for making things a little bit better)?

As some of you may know, personally I think that making source materials (including government documents and significant UFO publications) available as freely available searchable PDFs online would reduce any excuse for poor research.

In relation to the viral UFO videos swamping online ufology, I've said for a few years that the same old videos keeping popping up - so it would be desirable to have the real background to some of those videos set out clearly for people that haven't come across them before. Again, this would not be a total solution since only some people will bother looking for relevant information (or know where to look for it) - but such a resource could help address some of the massive amounts of nonsense written about UFOs online. I've recently been diverted from working on searchable PDFs (well, largely diverted...) to writing about the real background to a lot of viral UFO videos. I'll post something on this on ATS shortly.

What other constructive criticisms of modern ufology can others offer and what can be done to address those issues?

a reply to: IsaacKoi

for me, perhaps the biggest problem is a lack of understanding concerning basic psychological and sociological processes

the solution is for people to take the time to educate themselves a little bit in these areas

and more critical thinking and intellectual honesty wouldn't hurt either

eta: ufology as i see it is effectively now a branch of the entertainment industry, so it's no great surprise that it is dominated by the 'thrills, chills and spills' brigade

a reply to: IsaacKoi

Well from my take on it as much of the ufo forum relies on video/photography it would be good if people looked more into that, as I have said in previous posts on this thread and others about the subject sometime what you think you see or should see in a video/photograph may not be exactly how it looks, that can be down to resolution, optics ,exposure settings etc.

The classic example of misunderstanding pictures is the no stars in Apollo pictures which is entirely due to exposure but even some well in fact very well educated people who knew nothing of photography were fooled by that.

I joined this site because I was told I would see real evidence but nothing is 100% to me yet but fingers crossed someday something will be posted and I would back that 100%.

Modern digital cameras provide exif data which give information on time date focal length exposure even sometimes gps data which can be useful but most images have that removed.

Just have a look at our members astrophotography thread we have members all over the globe taking pictures of the night sky, people who know what they are looking at and how to capture GOOD images at night not the standard youtube junk that is posted here in the ufo forum.

a reply to: aynock

for me, perhaps the biggest problem is a lack of understanding concerning basic psychological and sociological processes

Yes, this is very true. Misconceptions run rampant in these areas.

if misidentification is explored as a possible explanation for some well known case, I am usually met with a barrage of rotten tomatoes because "highly trained" pilots are not delusional, "highly trained" military can't possibly misidentify anything and of course, I am suggesting that everyone that sees a ufo is hallucinating! Because people that see UFOs aren't idiots or morons or mentally ill!

similar comments were made right in this thread.

So just to clarify. Pilots can misidentify things for UFOs. There is no evidence that any amount of training makes anyone immune to basic human brain physiology. People that see UFOs and think they are alien craft are not hallucinating, delusional morons if it turns out to be something else.

How many times have you heard this: "either they are delusional idiots that can't tell X from Y or they saw something real"

So a little understanding of what the normal range of human misperceptions are wouldn't hurt. And that goes both ways because something unexplained isn't automatically a hallucination either.

www.redicecreations.com...
ODD = OBSESSIVE DEBUNKING DISORDER
"Most people find such arrogant and obnoxious debunkers and hardcore skeptics to be strangely angry and boorish, and often confrontational to the point of hysteria... Yet these 'scientifically' minded absolutists have no actual accredited scientific background, and seek entrenched orthodoxy - not exploration and wonder."

a reply to: IsaacKoi

One of the biggest problems I see regarding UFO data is that its missing a huge amount of information. Please correct me, but what I see presented as "UFO data" consists only of those cases that fit the category of "Unidentified". So the focus is on those cases and only those cases. When one gets identified, it gets removed from the data. This sounds right because we are looking for aliens after all and not misidentified things. So information contained in those reports are never analyzed.

So a UFO report that turns out to be latter identified could have all the same qualities as something that remains unidentified. we just don't know. So what I see is the baseline data missing since we don't yet have a baseline for alien ships, there is nothing to compare. What we end up comparing is unknown things to unknown things and when an unknown thing becomes known, its just replaced by another new unknown thing.

originally posted by: MKMoniker
www.redicecreations.com...
ODD = OBSESSIVE DEBUNKING DISORDER
"Most people find such arrogant and obnoxious debunkers and hardcore skeptics to be strangely angry and boorish, and often confrontational to the point of hysteria... Yet these 'scientifically' minded absolutists have no actual accredited scientific background, and seek entrenched orthodoxy - not exploration and wonder."

Psychological Projection

Psychological projection is a theory in psychology in which humans defend themselves against unpleasant impulses by denying their existence in themselves, while attributing them to others.[1] For example, a person who is rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude.

According to some research, the projection of one's negative qualities onto others is a common process in everyday life.[2]

What I find sad is some people are so DESPERATE for validation about the presence of ET here, is they will grasp at anything and hold onto it almost in a fanatic zeal, and any arguments to give a rational or conventional explanation are met with major hostility and denial that there can be an erthly reason.
It really ruins it for the rest of us who really want the truth and will filter out all other rational explanations.

a reply to: HomerinNC

You've just summed up the field of ufology for the past 60 years.

a reply to: IsaacKoi

Besides what you're doing that's quite a stumper. The CAIPAN workshop seems to have offered some great starting points and new directions.

There should be some kind of degree before one refers to oneself as a Ufologist haha. Even armchair. But I only partially joke. Something like comparative religion where one has to immerse and demonstrate a working understanding of a wide-range of theories and sciences. From ETH-IDH-Ultra-Multiverse-Whatever--Jung--Critical Thinking--History--Earth Sciences--Sociology--Psychology--Neurology--Physics--Group Dynamics--Joseph Campbell--Religion, etc. Of course that's not feasible because folk have to feed their families…

There are some very impressive autodidacts here & there though. The incomplete list above is a good place for me to personally dig deeper into.

As an armchair guy who posts little on the subject outside of ATS, I think the best thing I can do as a member of the 'ufo community' is to 'show my work.' That is, bring the research to the table and clarify the "logic" of my thesis for others to connect to or intellectually criticize. Rhetoric and shooting the ufological breeze can be cool sometimes, even important if philosophical in nature, but it's the DIGGERS that have made the most impression on me

Those that want the truth wherever it leads, even if it should only turn out to be the mind and human consciousness at the core. Those folk teach me that maybe I should broaden my perspective and I'm ever grateful for it.

And, Isaac, I don't want to risk embarrassing you, but I was thinking last night about how profound your database project is. I think because of the static within ufology we haven't realized that yet. Everyone knows it's a great idea, but the weight hasn't sunk in yet it seems. Seriously, one of the most important things ever offered to Ufology when you think about it. Not even debatable imo. I've been meaning to buy a drive I can dedicate to it all---and that to come; time to quit procrastinating.

For anyone interested in more on CAIPAN, check out one of my favorite ufologist's thread (karl 12):

Just a heads up but Australian researcher Bill Chalker has recently posted the link to the proceedings of the CAIPAN UAP/UFO workshop held at the CNES (French equivalent to NASA) headquarters in Paris earlier this year -as the article states below the links include slides, videos and lectures from folks such as Richard Haines, Jacques Vallee, Eduardo Russo, Philippe Ailleris, Nico Conti and Jeremie Vaubaillon - haven't read through all of it yet but it does state that Erling Strand also gives a presentation on his 30 years of research into the Hessdalen phenomena.

Proceedings of the CAIPAN Paris workshop on UAP/UFOs.

Slides, Presentations, Videos, Transcripts---ALL available at the link in the thread.

originally posted by: MKMoniker
www.redicecreations.com...
ODD = OBSESSIVE DEBUNKING DISORDER
"Most people find such arrogant and obnoxious debunkers and hardcore skeptics to be strangely angry and boorish, and often confrontational to the point of hysteria... Yet these 'scientifically' minded absolutists have no actual accredited scientific background, and seek entrenched orthodoxy - not exploration and wonder."

AWESOME POST! THANK YOU!

OG

originally posted by: HomerinNC
What I find sad is some people are so DESPERATE for validation about the presence of ET here, is they will grasp at anything and hold onto it almost in a fanatic zeal, and any arguments to give a rational or conventional explanation are met with major hostility and denial that there can be an erthly reason.
It really ruins it for the rest of us who really want the truth and will filter out all other rational explanations.

Yea but what if your explanations are not rational? At that point you are just grasping at straws.

OG

originally posted by: IsaacKoi
A lot of the posts in this thread are dwelling on problems within ufology.

Identifying problems within ufology is a fine starting point - but what about solutions (or at least constructive suggestions for making things a little bit better)?

.........................

What other constructive criticisms of modern ufology can others offer and what can be done to address those issues?

Hello Isaac nice to cross paths with you again.

I think you address some very important points here and there are a number of stumbling blocks we continually face in the field especially when first exposed to all of the information that is now available with a few clicks of a mouse (or taps on a smart device screen!)

It is very easy for those new to Ufology to fall into traps and believe they've stumbled upon something truly mysterious when in fact it is nothing of the sort. I've done it myself a number of times.

For instance the Guy Hottel Memo frequently pops up (even in national newspapers) and is often quoted as hard proof of alien craft being recovered in New Mexico.

Then there are things like the Alien Autopsy movie clip. Often presented as a genuine footage from 1947 at Roswell on youtube or a website.



Which, for those of us who have seen the British Comedy "Alien Autopsy", know is from the clip at the end of the film.



With no context these pieces of 'evidence' can seem convincing.

I don't really see how to stop people re-posting the same old commonly repeated documents, photos and videos. I think it relies on us (the members) to educate them. Perhaps a sub-forum with references to "hoaxes" or "identified" cases could be set up on ATS? I don't know.

There are too many issues with the UFO topic that still linger to this day.

I have a problem with the myriad of 'personalities ' who seem to have, lost their objectivity, (or never had any in the first place) who go on TV shows like Ancient Aliens, radio shows/podcasts like C2C AM, write books and speak at public conferences peddling the same old dubious stories. They will often declare that someone (usually the government) is covering up the truth. They often do it without any sense of irony at all.

But one of the biggest issues is overcoming individual bias and even our own ability to interpret the information presented. It can be difficult to re-evaluate personal views when presented with new details in what is a 'fringe' subject. The truth may still be out there. But what if that truth is not what you always thought it to be? Most people take a long time to accept they are probably wrong and so simply dismiss or ignore what they do not want to hear. This applies to hard-line sceptics and outright believers.

Summing that all up I guess what I am saying is that, no matter how much information is put out there to help "deny ignorance", there will always be those that choose the "ignorance" that most comfortably fits their beliefs.

originally posted by: OrionsGem
Yea but what if your explanations are not rational? At that point you are just grasping at straws.

OG

Now stop being a butt and read mirageman's wonderful wisdom above. I have hope for you, OG, you'll be a mighty digger when you get some of the ufological detritus out of your field of vision.

a reply to: OrionsGem

Yea but what if your explanations are not rational?

Well someone should keep them honest. We are all subject to bias and every other pitfall that comes with the territory. Making up BS psychological conditions is not helpful. Providing rational arguments is helpful.