posted on Jun, 13 2011 @ 03:15 AM
I've read through all 97 pages of this thread, and wanting to comment on it is was what induced me to finally become a member of ATS.
First off, I note that many of the commentors at odds with the OP haven't bothered reading through the entire thread, as they would learn that said
person had given up on ATS -- likely due to the lack of intellectual rigor in many posts hostile to him, as well as the repetition of tired arguments
-- so they ought to stop directing questions to the OP. In addition, a number of posters assume that he is not well-versed in UFO information,
although he stated in several posts that he has studied the subject for decades. This only goes to show the laziness and presumptuousness of a goodly
portion of what I'll refer to as the "true believer" crowd.
Next, there is the presumption by any of the posters hostile to the OP's POV, i.e. true believers, that he is a debunker or UFO naysayer. Rather, it
seems he -- and others tending to agree with him -- are merely healthily skeptical and just want to see solid "proof" of ET visits, and have yet to
see anything concrete, attesting to this assertion.
That said, there have been several posts that did point to compelling UFO sightings as well as links to some interesting video
documentaries/interviews (the only saving grace of this thread, in fact), but for the most part this 96-page thread has been a whole lot of hoohah --
just lame objections to the OP's original request/challenge, and/or very circumstantial (at best) evidence for ET visitations (this definitely
includes all ancient and historical paintings and their ET interpretations, along with second-hand attesting to by astronauts such as Edgar Mitchell
and quoting out of context/misrepresenting the statement of others such as Buzz Aldrin).
Such poor attempts at validating your BELIEF, true believers, does nothing to advance your hypothesis to critical thinkers, and thus keeps UFOlogy as
a fringe subject.
This is what I find so maddening about the study of UFOs: there is so much chaff to separate from the wheat. There are some well documented and very
compelling sighting cases, but many of these get buried in the noise of all the other, mostly better-known ones. Folk who want to advance the ET UFO
hypothesis need to do a MUCH better job, in general, of presenting their case if they want the mainstream media, along with the electorate, to take
UFO phenomena more seriously if they have any hope of pressuring governments to come clean on all their information regarding UFOs -- whether it
concerns older black projects or real ET visitations/sightings/physical evidence.
For the record, I consider myself an UFO agnostic . No doubt there's intelligent life in other star systems as well as other galaxies, but unless
there is a way to travel faster than light, they haven't likely visited Earth (the possible exception to this being machine intelligence with much
greater longevity than that of biological entities, and which also don't suffer the vagaries of biological civiliaztions). There are also -- as
I've already said -- some fairly compelling sighting cases which suggest non-human and non-natural phenomena may be involved. I suggest that people
concentrate on these and stop their poorly-reasoned arguments with UFO skeptics/agnostics (dogmatic UFO debunkers or naysayers are another matter, and
are not any better than the true believers) if they want to advance the cause of legitimate/scientific UFO inquiry.