Is the bar for skeptics a bit too low?

reply to post by AGENT51


I think the sides should be separated.

Working together the people who witnessed the UFO should come up
with the answers we all need.

Originally posted by yeti101
agent51 i firmly belive it was balloon debris + radar target that was recovered.

The haut affidavit looks to be a money making excercise. It was made in 2003 but not released until 2007 the 50th anniversary of roswell purely for commercial reasons.

[edit on 21-2-2008 by yeti101]

Who would get the money though? If the memo was to be released upon Walter's death, then who stands to benefit? This point has always eluded me as one who is still on the fence about Roswell.

The biggest question I have is how long do people remain skeptic for? If something is proven to you beyond doubt and you accept is as truth or a "high probability" don't you then change yourself and learn from that experience? Instead of when another possibility comes up you go back to being skeptical and thats it and the process goes full circle.

So anything new or unheard of immediately means "skepticise it". Whats the purpose of that? Wouldn't you rather use "reason and deduction", at least if you research it a bit than you can get a definitive yes or no as apposed to "hmmmm still dont know".

Originally posted by Drakiir
Wouldn't you rather use "reason and deduction", at least if you research it a bit than you can get a definitive yes or no as apposed to "hmmmm still dont know".

A lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea of not having a definitive answer for something, so they're willing to take what they perceive are the "facts" and jump to what they consider to be a reasonable conclusion. Even if you do all the research, you still might not come up with a satisfying explanation. There just might not be enough information to make a reasonable judgment. Are you saying that at that point we should just give up and adopt any old explanation as true? I'm not quite sure I see the value of that.

Personally, I'm not in a hurry. I can sleep perfectly well at night understanding that somebody has seen a silvery flying saucer but has no particular clue as to what it might have been. I could simply accept without any other evidence that it was an alien space ship. But what do I gain from that?

Sometimes there are just no answers. And simply accepting one of the possibilities as the answer isn't going to make me feel better. Because I'll still know it's not necessarily the correct and true answer. I'd rather just keep saying, "I still don't know," even if I die that way.

reply to post by Nohup


Are you saying that at that point we should just give up and adopt any old explanation as true? I'm not quite sure I see the value of that.

Im saying you can only pursue any topic for so long. If enough proof or logic in the claim or statement seems to be true than you can say chances are its true, if its not than chances are its not. Sometime the closest thing to truth and fiction is as far as you can get.

Not every question to every answer will be explained as you know, but I cant rest until I have a yes or no or high probability yes or no, I cant stand the " I forever doubt it unless there is proof" stance that some take, and don't bother to even explore the possibility. At least you can get most of the answer and thats better than being dismissive about it, as some people on other threads have been.

If people are uncomfortable not knowing every answer than there going to spend eternity in ifs, could, maybe, and possibility and that would drive me crazy.

[edit on 21-2-2008 by Drakiir]

I admit I used to be on the fence, but lean more towards the skeptic side each time I see a wild claim. The Texas siting is a great example. Reading other sites, news, posts, the story went out of control and any real facts have been watered down with amazing claims. Once those amazing claims get associated with the story, it gets very easy to just "toss it aside".

I think that trend hurts any real UFO incidents that may have occured. When the general public reads of UFO's from some wild web site, the national enquirer, it gets turned into a joke even if you see parts of it on CNN. Wikipedia cannot be used as a good source anymore due to the edits that some people make. Schools and Colleges are stating that you simply cannot used it anymore.

I believe in UFOs. I used to believe in them alot more until I kept seeing how someone talks to a contact in the galatic federation, and for some really odd reason they want humans to stop with the nuclear bombs. Its talk like that, that starts the "proof..where is the proof?" concept in many skeptics. Many people I know are that way too, the stories got "way out there" and now they just dismiss anything tagged with UFO's

Originally posted by Shadow_Lord
I believe in UFOs. I used to believe in them alot more until I kept seeing how someone talks to a contact in the galatic federation, and for some really odd reason they want humans to stop with the nuclear bombs.

Yeah, that's really odd, considering that we could utterly ruin ourselves and the planet with them....

Its talk like that, that starts the "proof..where is the proof?" concept in many skeptics.

Proof, like multiple corroborating whistleblowers and insiders talking about UFOs occasionally popping in and disabling our nuclear bombs?

Originally posted by MrdDstrbr
insiders talking about UFOs occasionally popping in and disabling our nuclear bombs?

That's where a skeptic feels compelled to speak up and say....just because someone said it, doesn't make it so. It's a cool idea, plausible for beings with advanced technology.....but did it really happen? Quite possibly....not.

Interesting anecdote, but to suggest it actually occurred by adding the bold tags....is to take a huge leap and simply trust "faith".

Originally posted by Gazrok

Another common logical skeptic misstep is the "duplication proves the original false" claim. Drives me nuts when skeptics do this. James Randi is the worst at it, although I've seen it around here, too. Just because a magician can "reproduce" the effect of a bent spoon, that does not in any way prove how a particular spoon was bent.

I'd agree with certain aspects of that. Just a side note that I didn't reproduce Meier's shots for any other reason then to prove small models could be the case, when their "media rep" said it was "impossible".

However, if the duplicated data contains exactly the same by-products (such as lack of distance hazing, etc etc) then it's a viable exercise to prove the possible method.

If 2 coins were bent, and the skeptic used whats called a boa (coin bending device), that made a definitive mark on the coin, and the claimant's bent coin also showed the identical mark, then it's probably safe to say he's using a boa too.

But in the end, no one can call hoax unless it's the person who did it. But if the evidence piles up from dissenting views and duplication, you have to make a certain call to the obvious.

I do agree that the skeptic view on UFOs is pretty dismal. The worst to me is McGaha. He's just embarrassingly inept, and to boot, incredibly condescending. My all time favorite was him telling a Bentwaters witness that no guards were on duty...to the very man who assigned the on-duty security. I think my jaw dropped at that one.

Someone should have asked McGaha who exactly was on-base, and involved in the daily routines...because to hear him talk, you'd think HE was.

The best some skeptics have to say these days is telling a witness "you didnt see that, you saw this".

reply to post by MrdDstrbr

Exactly my point. An alien race decided to take some personal interest in humans on Earth so they did not use nuclear weapons on themselves. They want to get involved between waring factions on Earth. They also want to remain behind the scenes, but "show" themselves to a select few so they can tell the world about what they are doing with their "warning", with no proof of them. They want to stay neutral, but mold the outcome of the future of humans to their personal interest, and claim "it is for humans benefit". If aliens are that advanced, then we would simply be an experiment at that point.

Wouldn't it make more sense to say: aliens are stopping humans from developing weapons that could defend (or attack) another race or planet?

If aliens truly are wanting to help mankind as a whole, stop them from using nuclear weapons from killing themselves, then they would just show up and announce that fact. If they are doing the same thing, but want to remain hidden for our (or their) protection, then they would remain hidden. Not by pulling someone aside and say "here is my email address, i will let you know what we are up to".

Facts are wonderful. Not everything can be proven with facts. But when you are trying to prove something and it gets diluted with smoke and mirrors, it is easier for most people to just push it aside and rule it out as fake. Not saying that is the correct thing to do, just what most people do.

I am just saying I believe skeptics would be more open minded if there was less "way out there" talk. I forget where I saw it, but I saw a post on reptile aliens. Someone posted a picture. He said "this picture is original, and has not been tamped with in any way. All I did was alter....", and some people took his altered picture to be real, and began using that picture to prove other things in that same line of thinking. Those end things are just jokes to some people, when in fact there could have been some real truth to them.

Originally posted by MrPenny

Originally posted by MrdDstrbr
insiders talking about UFOs occasionally popping in and disabling our nuclear bombs?

That's where a skeptic feels compelled to speak up and say....just because someone said it, doesn't make it so. It's a cool idea, plausible for beings with advanced technology.....but did it really happen? Quite possibly....not.

You are right, maybe it didn't happen, maybe it did.

But IMO the mistake many skeptics make is in refusing to ever trust any witness testimony. Especially with a case like this, where you have multiple, independent, credible, corroborating witnesses all saying the same thing. Heck, one of the witnesses, if I'm not mistaken, actually had the security clearance to handle and transport nuclear weapons!

Our courts of law accept testimony from witnesses as sufficient evidence - especially multiple corroborating witnesses - so, so must we.

Interesting anecdote, but to suggest it actually occurred by adding the bold tags....is to take a huge leap and simply trust "faith".

No, not trust "faith" - trust multiple, independent, high-ranking, credible, corroborating witnesses

Originally posted by Shadow_Lord
Exactly my point. An alien race decided to take some personal interest in humans on Earth so they did not use nuclear weapons on themselves. They want to get involved between waring factions on Earth. They also want to remain behind the scenes, but "show" themselves to a select few so they can tell the world about what they are doing with their "warning", with no proof of them. They want to stay neutral, but mold the outcome of the future of humans to their personal interest, and claim "it is for humans benefit". If aliens are that advanced, then we would simply be an experiment at that point.

That's a good way of putting it, yeah. Evidently our "cosmic zookeepers" really, really don't want us detonating any more nukes, or shooting them at the Moon etc. Some speculate that Nukes damage the fabric of the space/time continuum and whatnot.

Wouldn't it make more sense to say: aliens are stopping humans from developing weapons that could defend (or attack) another race or planet?

Yes, that too. They don't want us going out into space and using them on other races/planets either. It's a self-defense issue as well.

If aliens truly are wanting to help mankind as a whole, stop them from using nuclear weapons from killing themselves, then they would just show up and announce that fact.

No, not necessarily. The visiting races seem to have a policy or law in place such that they don't announce everything to the whole world in a completely transparent way like that.

Why? Who knows? I don't claim to know their mind or speak for them. I can only speculate.

In order to tell the whole world everything, they'd have to forcibly take control of all our mass media and broadcast to the whole world at once - which would likely cause a panic, as well as provoke a violent reaction from the PTB on Earth. So, perhaps they have laws and policies in place to prevent that sort of action, and they are forced to communicate with us through chosen human contactees instead.

reply to post by MrdDstrbr

This is what fuels the skeptic debat, I think in favor of the skeptics. 1 ship visible in the sky holding would be enough, they would not need to take over everything (which who knows would take as an act of war).

It still goes with the wild stories UFO and aliens are tied to that make it such a "fairy tale" for most people. So many UFO siteings are faked. That ruins it for any real. The boy who cried wolf concept.

Gazrock shall we discuss roswell here or wait for another time?

i would say its possibly the worst "flying saucer" incident on the ufoers books

If you haven't read my threads on Roswell, please give them a look. You'll find them in the Classic Cases link stickied in the UFO forum. They are EXTREMELY long, but they do answer your questions as to what is most compelling.

1. The sheer number of military officer witnesses, including ranks from sergeants to generals, and sworn affadavits, which form a corraborated timeline and support debris of an extraterrestrial origin.

2. The admitted coverup by the military...and the fact that the story itself was originally issued by the military! (i.e. the recovered "disc", they didn't say recovered "balloon", and there is nothing in Mogul that resembles a disc....)

3. The sheer laughability of the Mogul explanation, can't fit the size of the debris field, and materials recognizable to any 10 year old who'd eaten a Hershey bar. Such materials would not have been crated up and flown to Ft. Worth and Wright Field (documented facts), as they were off the shelf and common materials (only the PURPOSE of Mogul was classified, not any of the materials).

4. The military's own response, the cordons, etc. do not support a Mogul recovery, as often they would have simply been left out to rot (again, not classified materials), and many were never recovered.

5. The military felt so pressurred to explain the bodies, that they tried to use Operation High Dive to explain people mistaking 6' human dummies for 4' aliens...especially when High Dive was a few years AFTER the Roswell Incident...

6. The Ramey Memo - still one of the most compelling pieces of evidence, though not a necessary one...

While there are many false witnesses, etc. also in this case, it doesn't detract from the biggest evidence...the military's own handling of this, as something out of the ordinary, that is still being covered up over 50 years later....

[edit on 22-2-2008 by Gazrok]

Originally posted by Shadow_Lord
This is what fuels the skeptic debat, I think in favor of the skeptics. 1 ship visible in the sky holding would be enough, they would not need to take over everything (which who knows would take as an act of war).

1 ship hovering in the sky has already happened - many, many times.

I didn't mean "take over everything", I meant, they would need to hijack all our satellite, TV, radio networks and start broadcasting on them. That's the only way I can think of for them to communicate with the whole world at once.

And it would also be incredibly invasive, and as you said might be taken as an act of war. Which is why I believe they have laws and policies in place to prevent that.

Originally posted by MrdDstrbr

1 ship hovering in the sky has already happened - many, many times.

Can it be proved without a doubt to everyone though? That is the key here. It has been faked so much as well.

I swear I have seen a UFO. No one (up to this point anyway) can convince me that this was a man made vehicle(s). I have no pictures (this was in the 70-80's), no proof at all. I do not expect anyone to believe me based on me saying I did see it. But because of this, when someone claims to have seen something I am open minded to it. But what about the people who have never witnessed anything, and see nothing but fake claims?

Mankind cannot be the only intelligent life. We cannot be the only life that travels in space. We cannot be the most advanced race in the universe. (wow, I hope we aren't the ones setting the bar)

I am not trying to say anyone is wrong, I am just trying to give it a view from skeptics that see fake..after fake..after fake.

The "take over everything"; we are talking about the same thing just the way I wrote it, sorry about the confusion there.

Originally posted by MrdDstrbr
Our courts of law accept testimony from witnesses as sufficient evidence - especially multiple corroborating witnesses - so, so must we.

No, no. Not by a long shot. We're not in a court of law here. In fact, the rule of thumb here is guilty (of hoaxing or misidentification) until proven otherwise, simply because of past history. Additionally, we're not talking about witnesses to a fender-bender here, where we can all pretty much agree on the basic reality or possibilities of the situation. We're talking about highly unusual happenings, generally taking place in weird circumstances, regarding a subject that is itself only vaguely understood, if at all.

That's not to say that I think all witness statements should be tossed in the trash. I think it's highly improbable that tens of thousands of normal people could have been completely mistaken about every single sighting made over the last 50 years. That's just nuts, and one of the reasons I still have an interest in the subject after decades of disappointment. They can't all have been wrong.

But we've all been fooled by magicians. I know the limitations of my own perceptions. That means witness testimony, even my own, is only going to hold so much weight in the overall argument. It's still necessary to build a "pile of proof," that includes a coherent batch of witnesses, photos and videos, artifacts, confirmation by experts, and evidence durability (it doesn't just vanish into the air) to get the proof I want.

So far, nothing like that has happened, which is starting to become a kind of evidence, in itself. What could create a situation where the evidence always falls short? Time manipulation, maybe?

Anyway, as disappointed as I continue to be, I'd rather be disappointed than live in a fool's paradise by accepting faulty proof.

Originally posted by Nohup
In fact, the rule of thumb here is guilty (of hoaxing or misidentification) until proven otherwise, simply because of past history.

Really? When did they make that a rule on here?

Look, what do we do if the visiting ETs have a POLICY NOT TO "Prove" themselves to us?

If that's the case - and I believe it is - then isn't it rather unwise and unproductive to keep demanding and waiting for Proof-that-never-comes?

So far, nothing like that has happened, which is starting to become a kind of evidence, in itself. What could create a situation where the evidence always falls short? Time manipulation, maybe?

Policies, both on the ET side and by the PTB on Earth, to not allow definitive Proof.

Conspiracy is the antithesis of Proof

I consider myself an open minded skeptic, because of a personal experiance I had 22 years ago.
I do believe in ETs, whether or not they are/have visited Earth is another matter..
I will keep this as brief as possible so as to keep the emphasis on my beliefs, rather than the story itself.
In 1986 I was stationed at FT Irwin CA, We had an incident one night where a military aircraft had to make an emergency landing,
the craft I saw land did not resemble any type of aircraft I had ever seen.
(I was an Aerospace technition) This thing was all flat black, no tail, delta shaped, no discernable engine pods or exaust, also very "ugly" it had all sorts of angles to it..
Yes it turns out that it was a f117 stealth fighter (prototype?) Anyway I was convinced that this was not man made.. or if it was it was reversed engineered.
The fact that I had to go through 6hrs of "debreifing" at the time only convinced me more that this was a "captured" ufo..
My point being.. there is alot of REAL stuff out there that may not be ET..
And there are alot of credible people that truly believe what they saw is not from this earth..
As I stated earlier I do believe in other intelligent life out there, I'm just a bit skeptical that they are hanging around here.. I wish that they would stop by and have a beer with me sometime though..

Originally posted by jritzmann
But in the end, no one can call hoax unless it's the person who did it. But if the evidence piles up from dissenting views and duplication, you have to make a certain call to the obvious.

Again, that goes back to positive proof being the responsibility of the person making the claim. It doesn't hurt that a particular photo can be mimicked, as it does cast more doubt on the original doubtful claim. For Meier, he's always had an uphill battle with me because he's never been able to offer much besides the photos, which I've considered to be of marginal value from the get-go. Knowing that there are ways to make similar photos just means he needs to work extra hard to prove to me that they're real.

But even if I didn't know how he might have been able to do the photos, my "I don't know" remains a very strong argument unless he can provide additional evidence, external to the images, that backs up the images. Some people wrongly claim an "I don't know" as a victory and admission of veracity. But just because I admit I don't know how they could have been faked in no way validates the photos or implies that I accept them as real. Not by a long shot.