NO photographic or video/film evidence of UFOs will ever be accepted as “proof”.

There seems to be a perception that one really good image of Aliens and/or their craft would be considered to be proof of Alien/Extraterrestrial visitation, I contend that practically NO photographic or video/film evidence will ever be accepted as “proof”. Imagine the average UFO buffs “Alien Dream Encounter”.
An ET craft lands, a door opens, after some serious contemplation, you enter the “craft”, you have a good quality digital still camera and a DV video camera, and all are used to document the encounter. You enter the craft where you see and record the interior, Alien looking beings, odd interior architecture, and incomprehensible technology abound, they converse with you telepathically, they tell you the Earth is in great danger due to pollution and wars, all the while they are allowing all to be documented by your equipment. They then bid you farewell. You watch and record the crafts ascent back into the outer reaches of our planets skies, returning from whence they came. You can’t believe your luck, WOW! The first solid documentation of an Alien encounter, you know that at last you have the evidence the world has been waiting for. You will soon be famous, and the world will know the truth of the Alien presence. You call CNN, FOX, and MSNBC, excitedly telling them what has happened, the persons you speak with don’t seem to be interested in the footage without additional information verifying its validity, so you contact the local TV news station, they listen and express an interest in seeing the evidence, while questioning you about how you obtained the fantastic footage, you tell them that you have been interested in UFO’s for many years, this seems to have been a mistake, they are suddenly much less interested in your evidence. They are worried about making an embarrassing error by broadcasting possibly “hoaxed” footage. It is broadcast, but to your dismay, it is presented as a likely hoax, to your horror, the news presenters joke about how unlikely it is that the visuals shown were authentic, you decide to bypass these overly cautious types and post everything to YouTube and several other sites, again you are disappointed to see the usual UFO debunker's attacking your footage as obviously fake, they point out inconsistencies in the evidence, and say this indicates this may be an elaborate hoax. Things aren’t unfolding as you had imagined, already your credibility has been compromised by the overly cautious approach used by the local TV news broadcasters, and the YouTube commenter’s are making snide remarks about the evidence’s veracity. The abovetopsecret forums here receive the evidence in similar fashion; the believers are jumping for joy! At last, contact has been made, but, the debunker's will have none of it, they point out that although the visual evidence is the best seen yet, it all could have been an elaborate production, such as the CARET drone hoax. OK now you’ve had time to think about it, your mistake was in assuming that the usual information outlets would be interested in your evidence, so you contact the famous UFO researcher and reporter, Linda Molten Howe, she is immediately interested in your evidence, she asks very few awkward questions about your prior involvement in UFOs. The same happens with other well known UFO “personalities”, they all believe you, and ask very few questions about the authenticity and origins of your evidence. Soon you begin receiving phone calls from around the world, a film crew from Japan is especially interested in conducting an interview, a producer from a well know UFO investigative TV show calls, they are interested in doing an entire episode based on your footage. But all is not proceeding as you had originally envisioned, the skeptics and debunker's all declare the evidence to be a possible hoax, various inconsistencies in the interior lighting of the craft and the appearance of the Aliens themselves are shown to be likely the result of CGI.

Continued from above;

Numerous “experts” in these fields show how various aspects of the imagery could be the result of computer graphics. You can now see that, you should have obtained a physical artifact from the ET visitors, the evidence you obtained, however spectacular, is not physical in nature and therefore treated with great suspicion.

I think you can see that something along this line would be likely to unfold in this situation; no amount of visual evidence would be accepted as fact by the majority, with the ability to mimic these types of encounters with computers, it will take solid physical evidence to satisfy the average human being. The abundance of hoaxed UFO encounters has poisoned the average person’s willingness to accept such evidence, and who can blame them? Every year we are presented with tantalizing snippets of evidence, but in the end we never have solid proof of anything. Perhaps someday such an encounter will occur; preferably including solid physical evidence, in this day and age, visual imagery is not as convincing as it once was.

I disagree. Yes every photo is going to have it's detractors but that does not mean people should give up on the idea of capturing proof.

There'll be a day where someone get's that series of photo's we have all been waiting for, close proximity, entry and interior with the photographer mingling with the little guys

The Hi Mom shot!

I agree that no photo or image can be ever be accepted as proof, particularly when dealing with something as extraordinary as UFOs. It can be a good piece of evidence, when used in combination with other evidence. But a single photo or image of anything is not proof. For me, I need:

* Multiple photos and videos of the same thing taken by different people, none of them anonymous.
* Physical evidence directly linked to the photos that is proven to be (whatever, alien, from the future, etc.).
* Scientific verification from independent labs of the truth of the thing.
* Government or some other authority verifying the science.
* The opportunity for me to see it or touch it myself, if possible.

Easy.

Yeah this is very true, just because of the long list of possiblities that an object in the sky can be. The list goes on and on. Unless of course some one just gets lucky enough to record one land and an alien lands and shakes there hand, in this case I think you would just have to accept, but I doubt thats happening anytime soon. Until some one just gets something on video that is irrefutable. I'm sure that will happen one day, assuming the conspiracy is true of course.

i could take a pic of a alein playing chess with me on the moon.

and there was no way i could fake it lol

it would still be what every one say's DEBUNKED....


people belive what they will anyway's...look at reptilian's ...mofo shapeshift lol

a image of vigin mary on toast sodl on ebay for good change..why cause it was realy mary?noooo they belived in it lol

Has anyone here heard of the term Cognitive dessident???? look it up and that will clear this post...

It's true that the still photos will always be taken with doubt, but video is the different case. IF there's a convincing video on youtube, we'll all say it's fake or CGI. If it's on CNN or Fox news, we'll say it's real.

Yes this is something I've been saying for a while now - absolutely no amount of photos, footage or testimony will ever be considered "Proof" for the skeptics.

Then there are those who have the sense to say, well there's piles and piles of photos and footage, thousands of witnesses testifying - well this must be true, because of the sheer weight of the evidence....

reply to post by MrdDstrbr


By that logic Santa Claus is very much real, as all the evidence (photos of guys in Santa suits, kids insisting he's real, letters being written, cookies "mysteriously" eaten by the fireplace, etc.) is staggering.

A photo or video on its own will never be proof. Never, ever, ever. Would you put the future of you and your family on the line because of a photo? Of course not - scientsts are just as serious about their work as that.

Nohup's suggestion is something I 100% agree with. A photo or video, no matter how convincing, is just too easily faked. If we want to accept that as evidence, what's to stop me from writing "I was here, signed Mr. Random Grey Alien" on a bit of paper and claiming it as proof*?

*Proof only exists in mathematics - for everything else there's just "evidence".

Originally posted by dave420
By that logic Santa Claus is very much real, as all the evidence (photos of guys in Santa suits, kids insisting he's real, letters being written, cookies "mysteriously" eaten by the fireplace, etc.) is staggering.

Don't be absurd!

When the photos and footage are corroborated with testimony from credible people, when you have guys who have held high enough security clearances to handle and transport nuclear bombs saying that UFOs are real and they've seen EBEs - that's a whole different thing than "Santa Claus". Gimme a break!

Nohup's suggestion is something I 100% agree with. A photo or video, no matter how convincing, is just too easily faked. If we want to accept that as evidence, what's to stop me from writing "I was here, signed Mr. Random Grey Alien" on a bit of paper and claiming it as proof*?

Sure, Nohup's criteria are great - but what if the visiting ETs have POLICIES not to leave people with that level of evidence? Then what?

Do we sit and wait for more evidence for 20, 30, 40 more years, or do we do something and take action....?

reply to post by MrdDstrbr


Anecdotal is just anecdotal, regardless of who's giving the evidence. "I saw a UFO" does not a UFO make.

If the aliens don't leave physical material lying around, then tough beef - that doesn't mean to say the entire scientific community should lower its standards of evidence to accomodate your claims in a more sympathetic way - it just means your "theory" is unproveable and therefor of as much value to the scientific community as the teapot-orbiting-the-sun theory.

Until people who believe in UFOs offer up actual, REAL evidence, then they have no case. That's it. There's no getting round that point. If the aliens don't want to help you, then there's nothing anyone can do - the ball's still in your court, even if you can't find it

reply to post by dave420


The point is that the believers are out there actually doing stuff, taking an activist role, writing and faxing politicians, trying to raise awareness, pushing for the technologies to be disclosed.

The skeptics, and "scientific community" are doing.... not much of anything really.

Which group of people are the more useful group, really?

Which group are going to be the ones to really bring about Disclosure?

Originally posted by MrdDstrbr
Then there are those who have the sense to say, well there's piles and piles of photos and footage, thousands of witnesses testifying - well this must be true, because of the sheer weight of the evidence....

The piles of evidence are indeed proof that there is something unusual going on. But it doesn't prove anything about exactly what is going on. That's the tricky part.

For instance, there have been contactee reports of flying saucers landing and the pilots getting out and specifically telling the contactee that they are aliens from another planet. Sounds like good proof, huh? But it isn't. It's all hearsay. Who is to say that these supposed aliens aren't just lying through their teeth? Nothing. They could still be time travelers or demons or any number of things unless they provide verifiable proof of what they're saying.

Sure, there's a lot of evidence around. Proof, however, remains a slippery snake that keeps wriggling away just when you think you got it.

Originally posted by MrdDstrbr
Sure, Nohup's criteria are great - but what if the visiting ETs have POLICIES not to leave people with that level of evidence? Then what?

Do we sit and wait for more evidence for 20, 30, 40 more years, or do we do something and take action....?

Then I guess we're screwed. What would you like to do? Just make up your mind with crappy evidence and "settle" for an explanation just because you're impatient? "Oh, I don't care what the real truth is, let's just decide on it!"

Come on, man. What's your hurry? If it takes 100 or 1,000 years, isn't it more important to find out what's actually going on rather than decide because you're tired of waiting?

reply to post by MrdDstrbr


There are PLENTY of scientists who are looking for extraterrestrial life. SETI is just one massive group of those guys/gals.

Sceptics are just normal people who don't desperately want UFOs and aliens to be real, at least not to the point where they jump on any photo and scream "ZOMG! LOOK! ALIENS!!!1111".

If you've got actual real proof, the scientific community will be your biggest proponents. As it is, they're waiting, and the "believers" (read: people who have made their minds up without any evidence at all) have still to come up with the goods.

The ball is still in your court

Originally posted by dave420
There are PLENTY of scientists who are looking for extraterrestrial life. SETI is just one massive group of those guys/gals.

SETI is a joke, and a rather expensive one at that. Scanning for radio signals from ET civilizations, when all these thousands of UFOs are already here??

The ball is still in your court

Yes, you know how to take phrases I've used in other threads and parrot them back to me. How very clever of you Wow....