Uniting Skeptics and Believers and Lifting The Stigma

I would love to know how it is that gravity apparently does not affect these flying vehicles?
How is it that they zip around and emit no smoke or noise?

a reply to: wavelength

A few times yeah, there was some sensations that were metaphysical I suppose, where a white star just stopped an I heard an felt it say hi, an was stupefied for days. Most of the times they usually just pass by at different speeds, where they ether creep by or just kind of just dart around.

Usually urban an industrial areas with certain patches of woods or parks, and creeks or flowing water I guess. No major site or Indian burial ground that was desecrated.

a reply to: Proto88

Thank you, interesting for sure--especially how you've mostly seen them in park-like areas within industrial/urban areas. There are some who have this philosophy that UAPs and orbs gravitate towards rural areas, which is sometimes true, but there are handfuls of urban sightings as well.
Water/rivers seem to produce hot spots as well. I have personally seen something that could be classified as "orb" UAPs multiple times in two areas involving water--one across a lake inlet with a dam, and another in a semi-urban area in the middle of nowhere built at the confluence of three rivers.

ETA--the first of my "orb" sightings was viewed from an area home to Indian burial grounds, the second, as far as I know, was not.

originally posted by: wavelength
The field of Ufology is often referred to as a pseudoscience, fantastical, and even worthless in the eyes of skeptics. Some claim that the money spent by government entities to facilitate UFO/UAP research is a waste if not an embarrassment to their country and its taxpayers. On the other side, some UFO enthusiasts who are firm believers support these efforts in hopes that the "truth will be revealed".

The above, to me, shows one of the problems with UFOlogy, the way sceptics are seen by the believers.

A real sceptic is someone who doubts, so a sceptic (like me) may doubt the validity of some observations and mostly the validity of the conclusions made without enough facts, but a real sceptic does not see any kind of investigation about an unknown phenomena as fantastical or worthless, as a real sceptic is interested in the truth.

Do sceptics talk about pseudoscience? Many do, because most of UFOlogy does work as a pseudoscience, with no real fact investigation and conclusions made based more on belief than on facts.

But that doesn't mean that a sceptic is a denier, they are not, and deniers are the ones that are opposed to any kind of investigation and say all witness lie.

In the same way that there isn't an "one-size-fits-all explanation", there isn't an "one-size-fits-all" type of person interested or commenting on UFOs (or UAPs or whatever they want to call them).

originally posted by: ArMaP
In the same way that there isn't an "one-size-fits-all explanation", there isn't an "one-size-fits-all" type of person interested or commenting on UFOs (or UAPs or whatever they want to call them).

(quote snippet)

a reply to: ArMaP

You are spot on.

The issues arise when the bias interferes with the investigation. As you said, a true skeptic is simply searching for the truth and is able to rationally view each individual case objectively.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of "so-called" skeptics writing on the web, in publications, etc who are inherently biased against any evidence contrary to their belief--this may be due to a number of things such as fear, a religious belief, etc etc, or it may simply be a case of a firm opinion. This type of behavior amplifies the way some believers view skeptics.

On the other hand, I've run into a few Ufologists/witnesses over the years who had a bad habit of taking all cases at face value, immediately biased towards any high-strangeness or humanoid encounter as true (rather than looking at the facts, background etc before forming an opinion). This causes a similar set of problems in reverse as well as denial; but not denying the case, rather, denying evidence against the case.

The good news is, there are plenty of researchers and enthusiasts who do not fall into those biases/categories. Even John Keel stated, "belief is the enemy." He didn't necessarily mean it literally, rather he attempted to illustrate that a preexisting mental bias can interfere with finding the truth.

a reply to: wavelength

Great thread mate but considering all the many parallels in data I'd say that there's more likely only one explanation.

Don't know what it is lol but if there are many different explanations then why all the parallels in data?

a reply to: karl 12

Excellent question Karl 12!

Interesting perspective. This made me think of some of the things John Keel wrote over his years of research. I may publish a thread on my research on Keel in the future. You are correct, there are many parallels in data in many cases, but there are quite a few outliers as well. For instance, MILABs have certain specific "symptoms" not frequently present in abduction cases of a more "extraterrestrial" nature, such as memories of being in a military hospital or base during the abduction rather than being aboard any type of spacecraft or other conveyance.

Another example is how some UAP sightings are accompanied by a sulfurous or otherwise unpleasant odor--I have been working on a study grouping those together and finding parallels in those reports. In fact, there is a very large pool of reports involving those odors, but the majority of cases do not. It also appears that electromagnetic sensations often accompany the "stinkier" UAP reports. These are just a couple examples--essentially, perhaps we are both right in a way--one thing with one purpose may be going on, but perhaps with multiple causes all leading to the same outcome (this is a stretch, but for the sake of conversation, perhaps MILABs, joint ops, extraterrestrial, ID, etc etc would all be working towards the same scientific end goals). This, of course, excludes cases "debunked" as having natural origin, man-made craft, hallucinations and so on.

Essentially, the cause of an electromagnetic apparition (i.e. Albert Budden's Theories) may be of a different origin than a physical UAP sighting, which may be either man made or not (hopefully determined by further investigation), which may have a different cause than a humanoid apparition outside a witness's window, and so on. Although there are many data parallels, there are many deviations as well, with some cases showing few to no parallels altogether (such as the Australian case I wrote about a couple weeks ago which may --may-- have been explained with seismic activity).

With my skeptic hat still on, I'm looking into what types of gases may cause hallucinations, memory loss, etc. people claim to have experienced during ET encounters. So, to me, it appears that more investigation needs to be done to rule out many other factors that may contribute to people who may have hallucinated ET/UAP encounters/sightings and the air quality of their homes, as well as if they are sleep deprived.

Edgar Allan Poe, it is believed, suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning as he had all the tell-tale signs.

In addition, many of the characters in Poe’s works exhibit the delusion and paranoia that are symptomatic of CO poisoning. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator believes he can hear the beating heart of his victim underneath the floorboards. In The Black Cat, a man is haunted by the pet that he killed in a drunken rage. The list goes on. Poe’s own delirium and vivid hallucinations just before his death might also have been a product of carbon monoxide exposure: in his last moments, the grisly and haunting stories of his works became his reality.

ricecatalyst.com...

I find the article (below) extremely interesting, in that, supposedly our bodies can create carbon monoxide internally from stress.

I see a great many people who are hypersensitive. Sometimes the hypersensitivity is exquisite and is to light, noise, touch, smells (multiple chemical sensitivity) and often to electromagnetic radiation (electrical sensitivity). I have always wondered if there is an underlying mechanism and it appears there is! Donnay has produced a convincing case that this is evidence of past or current carbon monoxide poisoning which may come from outside the body or be made by the body itself as a stress response. This switches on a hypersensitivity and hypervigilence which amounts to chronic anxiety and possibly psychiatric symptoms. The good news is that this is curable!

www.ei-resource.org...

There are many other gases besides carbon monoxide that are created in the home or come in from the out of doors. Including

Road traffic is the principal outdoor source of nitrogen dioxide. The most important indoor sources include tobacco smoke and gas-, wood-, oil-, kerosene- and coal-burning appliances such as stoves, ovens, space and water heaters and fireplaces, particularly unflued or poorly maintained appliances. Outdoor nitrogen dioxide from natural and anthropogenic sources also influences indoor levels. Occupational exposures can be elevated in indoor spaces, including accidents with silage and in ice arenas with diesel- or propane-fuelled ice resurfacing machines (3) and underground parking garages (4)

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

And a lack of sleep may cause hallucinations -

A lack of sleep may lead to disorientation, manifesting as confusion. About 80 percent of normal people will have visual hallucinations if sleep deprived long enough. Approximately 2 percent of 350 people who were sleep-deprived for 112 hours began experiencing symptoms similar to acute paranoid schizophrenia.

www.huffpost.com...#:~:text=A%20lack%20of%20sleep%20may%20lead%20to%20disorientation%2C,began%20experiencing%20 symptoms%20similar%20to%20acute%20paranoid%20schizophrenia.

And that can of compressed air you use to clean your computer, well it's not air.

The usual gases found in canned air are difluoroethane, trifluoroethane, tetrafluoroethane, or butane. Butane is an interesting choice because it's flammable, so using canned air to cool hot electronics may not be a wise decision (see my burning bubbles project if you need convincing about potential flammability).

www.thoughtco.com...#:~:text=The%20usual%20gases%20found%20in%20canned%20air%20are,project%20if%20you%20need%20convin cing%20about%20potential%20flammability%29.