Stanton Friedman - An Enigma In UFOlogy.

Originally posted by redrezo
if we are talking legitimizing the subject of UFO's and possibilities of Aliens visiting the earth and you are trying to sell the idea vis-a-vis skeptical mainstream media, mainstream science community or elected representatives in power (ie: congress, president).

I have to completely disagree with you here, you just can't go on feeling by itself, no matter how much you agree with Jacques.

It's highly more important to go with baby steps FIRST and not just blurt out that there are bases on the moon, and Area 51 has live aliens!

Most people out there will think you're nuts, and some people may even do so if you believe in the mere possibility that aliens even exist.

What Stanton Friedman get's right, is sticking with the most compelling evidence to government coverups, alien visitation. It's not going to spectacular as some of the theories that are presented, but much more realistic in outlook when you are actively trying to convince a skeptical public to investigate the possibility of government coverups and so on.

Views may differ but in the end everyone is on the same side as far as producing evidence, spinning theories and speculation is for enertainment but having any form of tangible evidence should be the most important thing in UFOLOGY.





[edit on 16-6-2010 by redrezo]

With respect you obviously haven't read Vallee or really have a clue what I am actually talking about. it's nothing to do with bases on the moon, to even mention them really shows a certain ignorance about the whole subject.

The truth is, Ufology was a decade ahead of scientific thought, in terms of the acceptance that, we maybe we re dealing with something that is not inter stellar, but inter dimensional. The problem was, when this hypothesis was first put forward it made, in the eyes of mainstream science, even less sense than little green men from Mars.

In short, it was a theory postulated and waiting to see if science caught up. in the mean time along Stanton with his nuts and bolts and Roswell and that's all that we tend to see in the media nowadays. The truth is he is in a minority and his *good science* means not a jot unless one can actually accept that. Our understanding of the Universe in 1975, even 1985 was akin to a babies understanding of fiscal planning to that of a 40 year old accountant's.

My problem, such as it is, with the likes of Stanton and Randi is this. They seem to lack the courage to be wrong. They are, like a dog with bone if you try to postulate anything they personally don't believe in. Stanton and Randi's view of the universe is virtually wholly, anthropomorphic. That is, they view the whole subject from a wholly human point of view and seek to ascribe human answers to a problem that , the evidence we do have, suggests in non human in its' origin.

Vallee is every bit as qualified as Stanton and probably more so, as the guy also has a background in the filed of psychology as well as Astronomy.

You reply exhibits many of the problems those with a long history in Ufology have with people's perceptions of the field. The problem being primarily that, anyone who really has studied the subject as a whole, tends to end up in one of two camps. Totally dismissing it as simply delusional or having simple prosaic answers. Or, something far far more subtle than simple nuts and bolts ships, visiting Earth from another planet. As such, i stand by my comments that Stanton is, in the minority amongst the UFO cognoscenti in his belief that UFOs are nothing more than extra terrestrial craft.

Over the last 30 years Stanton, for all his sterling work, is no closer to having definitive proof of aliens than he was back then. The adherents to Vallee's theories can point to how, our understanding of the Universe and physics has come round to, arguably, back up what they have been saying for 35-40 years.

That has nothing to do with *bases on the moon* and *government cover ups* as you seem to think it does. With respect you might want to actually read what the likes of Vallee actually say, before jumping in and assuming.

At the risk of becoming repetitive i will say again. One of my problems with the likes of Stanton and Randi is a simple one. They both exhibit way too much of the "Look how clever I am I am the person who solved this problem* syndrome. Because of that, they are both, increasingly, selective about the data they wish to research and work with. That's as bad a science, in the long run, as the likes of Icke employ to back their claims. You work with the evidence wherever it comes from and if doesn't support your particular theory, you change your theory to suit the evidence, not just ignore it.

Vallee's qualifications

Vallée was born in Pontoise, France. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the Sorbonne, followed by his Master of Science in astrophysics from the University of Lille. He began his professional life as an astronomer at the Paris Observatory in 1961. He was awarded the Jules Verne Prize for his first science-fiction novel in French. He moved to the United States in 1962 and began working in astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin, at whose MacDonald Observatory he worked on NASA's first project making a detailed informational map of Mars. In 1967, Vallée received a Ph.D. in computer science from Northwestern University. While at the Institute for the Future from 1972 to 1976 he was a principal investigator on the large NSF project for computer networking, which developed the first conferencing system, Planning Network (PLANET),[1] on the ARPANET many years before the Internet was formed.

Originally posted by Kojiro

Originally posted by TruthMagnet

I Agree with you 100% on this!

When I first joined ATS I corresponded with Friedman a bit - on a couple of current UFOlogy issues - and I was pleasantly surprised by his fast replies.

I then went on to ask him about pushing the envelope further, using modern communication options (web/youtube/etc), and even volunteered my services to do free Web Devleopment to assist in growing the legitimate UFOlogy movement.

He promptly discontinued our correspondence.

No self-respecting academic like Stanton Friedman would consider something like >YouTube< to be a legitimate source for investigation. Academics will not even consider Wikipedia to be trustworthy enough for research because anyone can edit it and get things wrong or fabricate material. The Internet itself is filled with dubious material that is highly questionable in veracity.

I fully agree with his call for cutting you off.

I think you mis-understand - as a scientist myself I would never suggest going off of clearly unscientific (or easily manipulated) evidence.

I was discussing bringing more people into the UFOlogy movement - creating more professional interfaces and ways to interact with him, other UFOlogists, and MUFON.

Upgrading the existing infrastructure for UFOlogy research - perhaps even using a community built model as the open-source movement has.

He refused to discuss it - period - and he refused to discuss any further UFO cases with me.

I have worked with scientists in many fields before - and there is a certain professional courtesy - even between innovators of their field and the recently degreed or even students - he has clearly shown that he does NOT want to build upon the work already done in UFOlogy and to pass it on to a future, rising, group of legitimate UFOlogists.

Nor does he want to discuss or encourage bringing a new level of legitimacy and professionalism to the science.

And this is unfortunate - because in fields such as this and cryptozoology - there is not much honest financial support to be found - and it is the community of altruists who are willing to volunteer and work for lower than market rates - who keep the science alive.

I would think that the elder group of UFOlogists - especially those claiming an air of professionalism - would jump at the chance to mentor the next generation.

Originally posted by TruthMagnet

Originally posted by Kojiro

Originally posted by TruthMagnet

I Agree with you 100% on this!

When I first joined ATS I corresponded with Friedman a bit - on a couple of current UFOlogy issues - and I was pleasantly surprised by his fast replies.

I then went on to ask him about pushing the envelope further, using modern communication options (web/youtube/etc), and even volunteered my services to do free Web Devleopment to assist in growing the legitimate UFOlogy movement.

He promptly discontinued our correspondence.

No self-respecting academic like Stanton Friedman would consider something like >YouTube< to be a legitimate source for investigation. Academics will not even consider Wikipedia to be trustworthy enough for research because anyone can edit it and get things wrong or fabricate material. The Internet itself is filled with dubious material that is highly questionable in veracity.

I fully agree with his call for cutting you off.

I think you mis-understand - as a scientist myself I would never suggest going off of clearly unscientific (or easily manipulated) evidence.

I was discussing bringing more people into the UFOlogy movement - creating more professional interfaces and ways to interact with him, other UFOlogists, and MUFON.

Upgrading the existing infrastructure for UFOlogy research - perhaps even using a community built model as the open-source movement has.

He refused to discuss it - period - and he refused to discuss any further UFO cases with me.

Well, you certainly didn't support your point by mentioning YouTube. Seriously, that was likely the straw that broke the camel's back. I still don't blame him.

Originally posted by FireMoon
With respect you obviously haven't read Vallee or really have a clue what I am actually talking about. it's nothing to do with bases on the moon, to even mention them really shows a certain ignorance about the whole subject.

Yes I have, but I didn't feel the need to reference it to get my point across.

Vallee thinks they are part of interdimensional entities that have the means to warp our consciousness and so on.

This whole issue negates itself by it's nature which hinges on epistemology. If you really want to go down that path, really why stop at interdimensional aliens that manipulate our minds? All of reality could just simply be an illusion and nothing that we can touch feel and see has any inherent matter or substance and it is actually consciousness itself that creates reality, with no such thing as an objective universe. This is a view held in buddhism which is what i'm familiar with and Jacques theory is only scratching the surface, because there is far more crazy stuff out there in the world that could be real than just UFO's.

ie: Jesus walking on water, ressurection, healing the blind, and tons and tons of other miracles from saints in many religions catholicism, buddhism, that have powers that are even more fantastic than the reputed psionic powers of ET's (ie: Bilocation, walking through walls, flying through the air etc.. etc..)

If you are going down that path you are going to need to take account of UFO's and everything else under the sun to get the right context, and even if you did that you would be proving what i'd been saying the whole time!

Again no matter how crazy and divergent people's views are, the fact is we live in a relative reality, and within that framework we can still corroborate certain phenomena being real in a relative sense without having to label it as this or that based on ANY view.

That's more important than arguing over theories and semantics, like i've been saying all along, evidence is the most important thing, and it's proven beyond a reasonable doubt that some flying saucers are real objects (in the relative world) and can be dealt with in that manner.

Maybe some really are interdimensional, but as the saying goes, anything goes.



[edit on 17-6-2010 by redrezo]

No self-respecting academic like Stanton Friedman would consider something like >YouTube< to be a legitimate source for investigation.

reply to post by Kojiro


Really????? Have you seen the amount of academic lectures from MIT staff on YouTube? If UFOlogy is to be a legitimate form of scientific research, then why not share your findings on You Tube as other academics share their thoughts on for example on Nuclear Physics?

Here's the difference - Why would someone like Stanton Friedman put his lectures on YouTube when he can sell the book or DVD and make money from it? Academics who do post on YouTube are generally not looking for monetary gain.

UFOlogy does need a scientific, respectable spokesman to make it more legitimate. This is no longer Stanton Friedman.

reply to post by redrezo


You have very elegantly proved exactly what i was talking about. As Professor Jim Al-Khalili would say. I'm sorry but the *Shut up and just measure it* school of science, which Stanton belongs to, is just not good enough.

Vallee does not exclude that there are some UFOs which are nuts and bolts, just points out that. There are a huge number of reports which seem to be something more. Valle was involved with the Valensole sighting from France 1965 and thought it, did indeed, offer evidence of a nuts and bolts craft.

That's my point Stanton is only interested in a nuts and bolts explanation when the evidence suggests it is far more subtle than that. That's akin to studying astronomy only during the day.


If it worries you that, you might have include so called miracles and the fact *how real* our universe, sorry multiverse , is, I'd suggest you are just going to end up driving yourself mad. The *reality* of our existence, is at the heart of them smashing tiny particles into each other in Cern.

Originally posted by Welsh_Mulder

No self-respecting academic like Stanton Friedman would consider something like >YouTube< to be a legitimate source for investigation.

reply to post by Kojiro

 

Really????? Have you seen the amount of academic lectures from MIT staff on YouTube? If UFOlogy is to be a legitimate form of scientific research, then why not share your findings on You Tube as other academics share their thoughts on for example on Nuclear Physics?

Here's the difference - Why would someone like Stanton Friedman put his lectures on YouTube when he can sell the book or DVD and make money from it? Academics who do post on YouTube are generally not looking for monetary gain.

There's significant loads of CRAP on YouTube. It's a festering pool of sludge with a few rare gems in it. If I was a professional scientist myself, I would not bother to use it.

I would never trust Friedman as far as I could throw him.
Have met him a couple of times here in the UK at lectures,
and has always come across as only interested in selling
his latest book/dvd etc....he`s a plant imo!