Having just read Sleepers post...

and accompanying thread, I swear to God that this place is becoming more and more like the National Enquirer with every passing day.

People are logging on here lately with the most preposterous of tales and every one of them with the same caveat "I dont have one scrap of evidence but its the goddam truth".

Fortunately seasoned ufologists which are many on here can quickly disregard this nonsense being cited by these people and move on to the more important posts.

Its the newbies to SERIOUS Ufology research that I feel for....with their limited knowledge they may even fall for such triteness.

And to be honest ATS has always be regarded as a RELIABLE forum for discussion on Aliens and Alien Encounters and now we have junk like this ... Mods, be careful that you do not lose this hard earned reputation.

Maybe we should have a debate forum with someone like Sleeper and Earth Sister as their views are so polar.

Ermmm....no, maybe not.

On the other hand, we can't have an atmosphere of ridicule though either, or else nobody would have the desire to share their story....and then we wouldn't get the chance to evaluate it for ourselves.

It's a valid point. But the best any of us can do is state our case, cite our sources, and then respond to the criticism. If a claimant comes on describing an encounter, it may of course sound wholy incredible, but in the end, it's up to each of us to decide for ourselves what info is good and what isn't.

At least the poster in question has responded to questions politely, and avoided some flamebait, so regardless of how believable one finds him to be, he has been forthcoming.

The alternative is to what? Close/move threads not conforming to a certain standard of being "serious UFOlogy"? I consider myself fairly knowledgable, but I wouldn't want to be in that position, of deciding what is fit for the membership to read and what isn't. I'd prefer to let the membership decide that, by their willingness to read and reply to the threads in quesiton.