Interview With Stanton Friedman - Debunking the Debunkers - 2011 UFO Conference

reply to post by roughycannon


Sounds like you're a skeptic, not a debunker. You're using the same words, but different definitions.

reply to post by m0r1arty

I saw a good humored gentleman speak knowledgeably in a topic for which he must be granted a reasonable fulcrum for his expertise. He has a lengthy credible C.V.
He attacked no one without stated cause ('mockumentary' was a little strong but I feel accurate).
He retains sufficient mental flexibility to allow skeptics room to serve their purpose, separating the chaff from the wheat. It's noble to not be gullible. Being so persistent in a vision that the truth becomes your foe is a fail situation, however.
My take on debunkers is simply that they have never had the experience. I have NEVER seen a debunker state that they saw a bona fide UFO prior to their debunking. They would be psychotic or suffering from a personality disorder, if not in pay, if they could perform this deception. Let's assume there is no ulterior, sinister plan. It's not conspiracy.
Now it's easy to hold a belief that requires nothing of the believer. A belief is generated from the hind-brain. It's a warm and cozy place to hide when the real world is too obtrusive.
Since I have witnessed my UFO, I know that the government and the PTB all lie consistently about this subject.
I KNOW.
So when someone gets all hetted up and heading in the wrong direction about UFOs, I apply reason whenever possible or allow them their delusion about what is real and trustworthy. As a witness you can only bring so much to the table. These guys will steal the your silverware and complain if it's plated.
They are lame and I KNOW because I have seen what they haven't.
How can anyone argue as to what I've seen? In what way could they convince me that I err? Have I been rigorous in the analysis, sober when viewing, suffering from a malady concurrently with the sighting? Yes, yes and no.
If anyone is interested in knowing what I have seen, state so. It was strictly visual. Nothing terribly weird. Just really odd.
Now I am eternally intransigent about this issue. It's a very powerful gift to become more aware of what may lie out there or is within us. It broadens and enlightens the skies for us to imagine more.
How cool is that?

Yeah his views on the seti project are valid ,I am skeptical about his base knowledge though as he comments on astronomer tyson`s explanation of pioneer spacecraft taking 700,000 years to reach the nearest star and states its coasting without propulsion,well considering the sun and solar system are travelling away from it at 220km a second,that explains why ?So yes it does`nt take rocket science to see between the tale from the truth.

I want to see Stan touch down more on the modern stuff as well, get in to so some of John Mack's work perhaps carry the torch. I think this is a taboo topic Stan has had on the table for decades now since the Hill abduction. Im not interested in UFO's anymore because they exist, but what is inside them is the question that burdens our hearts, minds.

If there was no Stanton I wouldn't have ever made these posts, made posts and talked at all about any of this.

Gods speed Stan

I have a question, that popped in my mind when watching this interview:

- why no one ever fabricated a believable UFO sighing (with media in on it) and waited until the government released a statement that it was their secret plane or whatever witch would prove once and for all that the government is lying to the public about he UFO even when they don't know anything about a specific sighting? Or that the gov. is telling the truth, if the answer would be "we don't know"?

So....if something is bunk and someone debunks it, this is a bad thing?

Right?

reply to post by m0r1arty


not so intelligent are ya

Originally posted by Unknown Soldier
Stan is the man, he really is down to earth and realistic. You really dont see much of that any more. Last of a dying breed. I will miss him when he is gone, he has done a great service to ufology.

Very well said and right on.

Thanks for the great video interview, ATS. It gets lonely out here in China without Youtube.

Link:
en.wikipedia.org...

Friedman was employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist for such companies as General Electric, General Motors, Westinghouse, TRW Systems, Aerojet General Nucleonics, and McDonnell Douglas where he worked on advanced, classified programs on nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets, and compact nuclear power plants for space applications.[2] Since the 1980s, he has done related consultant work in the Radon-detection industry. Friedman's professional affiliations have included the American Nuclear Society, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and AFTRA.[1] [2]

I think the thing Stanton is most right about is his claim that we could travel to other stars if we wanted to. I think he's right. Ya it would require a crash program to produce a nuclear starship but it could be done. It's not beyond our current physics to accomplish. If we HAD to we could and we could do it within the span of a human lifetime. Stanton would know about. He was active during the period that Friedman was working on the Orion program. Their mission was to build a nuclear-pulsed propulsion spacecraft that used mini-nukes to propel the craft forward. I am not sure what Stanton did during his 'nuclear physicist' years but he knows we can go to the stars if we want to.

I think that his nuclear knowledge is what inspired him to research UFOs. He already felt before he embarked on this adventure that many people were ignoring the capabilities of nuclear power and nuclear propulsion. If we can ignore that, what else are we ignoring, he asked? This set the stage for his later years when he chased after UFOs. He felt in his bones there were secrets all around us!

We can't travel to the stars, they say! The earth is flat, they say! Flight is impossible, they say!

Originally posted by largo
reply to post by m0r1arty

 

My take on debunkers is simply that they have never had the experience. I have NEVER seen a debunker state that they saw a bona fide UFO prior to their debunking. They would be psychotic or suffering from a personality disorder, if not in pay, if they could perform this deception. Let's assume there is no ulterior, sinister plan. It's not conspiracy.
Now it's easy to hold a belief that requires nothing of the believer. A belief is generated from the hind-brain. It's a warm and cozy place to hide when the real world is too obtrusive.
Since I have witnessed my UFO, I know that the......

If you needed to see it to not be a debunker, then how did Stanton not become a debunker if he's never seen a UFO? I might be mistaken, but I do not think he's ever seen one himself. And if not, I think the most reasonable explanation is that his work in nuclear physics opened his mind to an array of possibilities. This is what primed the triggering mechanism that made him explore UFOs.

Most UFO cases are bunk. That's what's so misleading. There're only a few cases that're intriguing, but they offer no proof. That's the problem I have with ufology. I am not sure how Stanton has stuck with it for so long, but I suspect he's bumped into a few cases that have kept his attention going all this time. If it weren't for the sake of those cases, he might easily have lost interest.

But since his universe is so much larger than average because he believes we CAN travel to other stars with enough effort, I believe his mind is more open to what is out there in the greater universe. Remember that people once thought the oceans ended in an abyss and that any ship that crossed this abyss plummeted to its end. It was only when we finally traveled them and broke these myths that what was out there was revealed to us. Only when you have the courage and blind faith to break down barriers despite all that we don't know can you hope to see what's kept secret from us. Don't be one of those people that is stuck in the kings court telling everyone who has a ship not to travel across the ocean less they plummet to their end! Be a rebel, an explorer, a revolutionary!

Stanton Friedman likes to try to differentiate between skeptics and debunkers, but I believe he doesn’t quite get these terms correct either, as who he refers to as debunkers is actually what I term false researchers.

My thought has always been that a skeptic is someone who comes into a case with no misconceptions of the particular case in question, not believing one side or the other. The case is looked at and examined. Rational and logical avenues, such as things that are known, are examined and exhausted, before even looking to the more exotic possibilities. It is hard to come in looking at the exotic possibilities, because these are hard to dismiss because they are not known, which will keep you from ever getting to the possible explanations.

You can be a believer in UFO’s, Visitation, Supernatural, Advanced Civilizations, etc, and still come into a particular event from a skeptical point of view. It is usually the best point of view to come from because if you come to the conclusion that a particular case is mundane, there may be others that can not be proven as such, moving you closer to finding the answers and possibly even come closer to verifying your beliefs.

Once a person has come in from a skeptical point of view and shown that a case has just a mundane explanation, the case has been debunked, and this person has become a debunker for this particular case, this does not mean this person from this point on out is now a debunker for every case forward, just for the case or cases that they have proven to be mundane, false or a hoax.

You do have people who come into cases who are out to prove hoax or something mundane from the get go whether or not it is or not. They are not there to find the truth, just to prove a case false without even looking into the case or the facts. These people often get labeled debunkers, but this is not the correct use of the word, they are in fact false researchers. They have no desire to find the truth, it has nothing to do whether they are a non believer or not, because even non believers have been known to look into the facts of cases, even if the conclusion is that no ordinary explanation fits.

You have other people that because no known explanation can be found, automatically go to the more unusual, even though there is no real basis for the conclusions they are coming to. For these people unexplained, means aliens, supernatural, etc. which could very well be the case, but there is no way to be certain. These aren’t believers but what I refer to as extreme believers.

Could I be wrong in my uses of terms, of course I could be, but I think I am more on track with the way I use these terms than Stanton Friedman and some others.

Good interview. I agree with him that reporters reporting UFO cases should at least be interested and have some basic knowledge about the subject. I think the subject would be taken more seriously by the public if that was the case.

Originally posted by jonnywhite
Link:
en.wikipedia.org...

I think the thing Stanton is most right about is his claim that we could travel to other stars if we wanted to. I think he's right. Ya it would require a crash program to produce a nuclear starship but it could be done. It's not beyond our current physics to accomplish. If we HAD to we could and we could do it within the span of a human lifetime. Stanton would know about. He was active during the period that Friedman was working on the Orion program. Their mission was to build a nuclear-pulsed propulsion spacecraft that used mini-nukes to propel the craft forward. I am not sure what Stanton did during his 'nuclear physicist' years but he knows we can go to the stars if we want to.

I think that his nuclear knowledge is what inspired him to research UFOs. He already felt before he embarked on this adventure that many people were ignoring the capabilities of nuclear power and nuclear propulsion. If we can ignore that, what else are we ignoring, he asked? This set the stage for his later years when he chased after UFOs. He felt in his bones there were secrets all around us!

We can't travel to the stars, they say! The earth is flat, they say! Flight is impossible, they say!

edit on 7-3-2011 by jonnywhite because: (no reason given)

edit on 7-3-2011 by jonnywhite because: (no reason given)

edit on 7-3-2011 by jonnywhite because: (no reason given)

I don’t know if it is impossible or not to travel to other stars with the technology that we have or not, we may very well have the technology to accomplish it, and just need to refocus the capital we are using on other projects to fund such a venture. Let’s say we have the technology and build this “star ship”, do we also have the technology to keep objects such as meteors and other space debris from damaging the hull of the ship as we fly at such high speeds that would be needed to traverse the distances. Or would it be a pray before we start the voyage that nothing strikes our vessel and kills us along the journey?

Originally posted by Archirvion
not so intelligent are ya

I've observed you mention intelligence in many of your posts.

It would seem to be a reoccurring theme.

I hope it's not indicative of any insecurities you have.

As for reporters knowing more about the subject prior to writing about it...It's pretty hard to write up mostly fictional accounts as something more credible whenever someone like Friedman can't supply a story which meets all the marks of legitimacy.

-m0r

Originally posted by m0r1arty

Originally posted by Kargun
Scientists can be so blind.

And so ends my relationship with ATS.

Friedman is the best of the bunch - but he's still peddling, albeit in how not to accept paddlers, and has been built up within the U2U I got to be something of a celebrity. He's not. He's a guy with an interest and tries to keep others steady on the basis that they will go AWOL based on nothing.

Good guy - but hanging around this field for this long makes me suspicious.

Still, nice interview ATS and well done for getting it!

-m0r

This is the typical "debunker" attitude. "Don't bother me with the evidence. I've already made up my mind!" It's a shame that people base their *beliefs* that there is nothing to the UFO topic on character assassination. To insinuate that there is something categorically wrong with the fact that Freidman has been in the field for "this long" and is therefore "suspicious" is in and of itself: wrong. Freidman is not a peddlar. The reason his has risen to prominence in the field is that he brings a high level of scientific professionalism and quality to a field that desperately needs it. The fact that he wins the majority of his debates ruffles many feathers. When "debunkers" find themselves on the end of a losing debate, they will resort to attacking the person instead of the theories, facts, ideas and evidence presented.

For someone to end their relationship with ATS over a post concerning one of the best minds exploring and investigating the UFO field is simply juvenille. The church closed their minds to scientific facts in the days of Leonardo DaVinci, so determined that their *beliefs* about the universe were correct. So closed-minded they were, people were put to death over controversial ideas that later proved TRUE. Thank goodness there is no powerful institution as that these days, for "debunkers" would have a long list of murdered folks who just happened to think beyond conventional wisdom and discover the universe as it really is, not how they *believe* it to be.

Originally posted by GhostLancer
This is the typical "debunker" attitude. "Don't bother me with the evidence. I've already made up my mind!"

I'm getting into this being labelled as a debunker thing. It seems to give my pragmatism a sense of merit.

My scepticism is always wishy washy as it can never know anything and accepts all ideas as possible.

My pragmatism though, well it likes to start with simpler and provable theories rather than jump to fantastical ones bypassing more probable possibilities.

So yeah, when I've got evidence which illustrates something unknown I'll give it a good look and start from the likely and work my way up to the unlikely. But having travelled the world and been to some places draped in rich heritage and diverse culture, and having never seen anything I can call paranormal, I'll take good old boring and fascinating reality.

Who needs plebeians or galactic federations of light when I can experience music, food and stories from my cousins which are far more exciting and have influenced generations of their families?

-m0r

Originally posted by jonnywhite
I think the thing Stanton is most right about is his claim that we could travel to other stars if we wanted to. I think he's right. Ya it would require a crash program to produce a nuclear starship but it could be done. It's not beyond our current physics to accomplish. If we HAD to we could and we could do it within the span of a human lifetime. Stanton would know about. He was active during the period that Friedman was working on the Orion program. Their mission was to build a nuclear-pulsed propulsion spacecraft that used mini-nukes to propel the craft forward. I am not sure what Stanton did during his 'nuclear physicist' years but he knows we can go to the stars if we want to.

It's been said that it's impossible to prove a negative. For instance, right up until the Wright Brothers succeeded, prominent scientists were claiming that heavier-than-air flight was impossible. Look how far we've come as a civilization since Kittyhawk, just over a hundred years later, we live in an age of technological wonder. Imagine if a civilization had only a 300 year head-start. Already we're learning that a strong 50 years ago, science was developing faster-than-light (FTL) theories (and secret tech?): news.discovery.com...

Further, NASA and other scientists are getting confirmation of some really bizarre and unexpected interactions with our sun, "portals" and anti-matter:
science.nasa.gov...
www.nasa.gov...

So, here we learn that 50 years ago, FTL was being worked-on. Now, we're seeing antimatter produced by thunderstorms in our atmosphere. And, we know that there are magnetic portals connecting the Earth and sun. I would bet that these are just the tips of major icebergs ---in the sense that we really don't know all there is to know about our universe just yet.

I point this out to set aside the popular *belief* about "They can't get here from there." That being said, why must "aliens" be extraterrestrial? There could be advanced species living among us from ancient times predating humanity, and we might be as aware of them as cock roaches are aware of us. Other lifeforms might be naturally or technologically capable of being invisible to our prosiac, limited range of senses. The visible spectrum is but a tiny portion of the entire energetic range. And, where would they possibly live? The oceans are still a vastly unexplored mystery. We haven't even explored ALL of the caverns that we already know about, and there are more that we surely have not discovered. They go deep, apparently.

Even at our young scientific age as a civilization, we're working on FTL travel. Plus, "aliens" don't necessarily have to be from other star systems; they can be from our very own planet, our own solar system (including Ort Cloud and Kuiper Belt objects). We are constantly learning that LIFE is versatile and resilient, surprising us in places we never expected: www.foxnews.com...

From Dictionary.com:

debunk
–verb (used with object)
to expose or excoriate (a claim, assertion, sentiment, etc.) as being pretentious, false, or exaggerated: to debunk advertising slogans.

There's nothing wrong with exposing false or exaggerated claims.

Originally posted by m0r1arty

Originally posted by GhostLancer
This is the typical "debunker" attitude. "Don't bother me with the evidence. I've already made up my mind!"

I'm getting into this being labelled as a debunker thing. It seems to give my pragmatism a sense of merit.

I apologize if it seemed like I was labelling you as a debunker. I was merely stating that you had slipped into a "'debunker' attitude." You went on a character assault against someone (Freidman) who deals in scientific investigation, fact and theory. I am not promoting his books, and I do not know him. I have, however, read "Flying Saucers and Science," and thought it was well sourced, thought-out and put-together. It's a sound piece of writing. I highly recommend reading that book before resorting to character assault. The reason I suggest that you read it is because you sound like someone attacking a person because you haven't read his work, dismissing someone as a peddlar without really looking into it. Just an observation. One last thought on this before I move on, being called a "debunker" isn't really that meritable. Being a skeptical investigator is meritable, however, as (at least) one is actually concerned with evidence/fact/theory and not character assault.

DEBUNKER: Debunker is one of those words that has been used in so many ways that it has come to mean different things to different people. The reason I, many times, put "debunker" in quotes is because of that. For many, a debunker has become known as someone who blindly dismisses evidence in an attempt to ridicule people and minimalize all (or most) UFO sightings with mundane explanations that insult the intelligence of witnesses with credible backgrounds and professions. "Debunker" has become *slang* for disinformation agent (or misinformation agent).

SKEPTIC: Someone who goes into an investigation or situation with a high degree of proof required to formulate an opinion/conclusion regarding a UFO sighting. This person weighs evidence OBJECTIVELY and uses the scientific method as much as possible, as well as employing scientific evidence-gethering techniques. This person is open-minded about the facts and does not jump to conclusions.

reply to post by esteay812


Idk man... HE WORKED ON ADVANCED NUCLEAR PROPULSION... Ok now you tell me if he knows anything more than you do, sir.