I can understand the Skeptics Argument.

First off I'm a believer in the whole aliens are visiting. I've had a few extremely odd experiences myself, maybe they completely normal experiences and I'm just thinking too much about them, or maybe they were actually something paranormal, and truly strange. I like to take a more logical (see my user name makes sense!) look at things.
I will probably will post about my experience when I feel comfortable on this site. Mines isn't as dramatic as others on this site. I posted it on Mufon's old forums and they weren't exactly helpful, or supportive.

Anyway The point of this post is I just want to say I can understand the skeptics argument.
I think they have good reason to be skeptics.

Not one legit photo of a ET.
Not one legit photo of a alien spaceship.
Which right there is proof for a lot of people, that aliens may not be visiting.

Not only that but people are talking about the
*"Cat People"
*Star Gates
*Galactic Federation - I have done a google search for this term and 2 websites are infected with spyware. As I go through the pages of google results one sites"about the galactic federation" page seems to be nearly word for word from a comic book or cartoon. (Its extremely hard to believe)
*Reptillians
*I have also gotten a reference about Galactic Federation from a couple of cartoons and from a few video games.
*Not to mention people on this seem to be have a "internet orgasm" over this youtube Captured alien video which is obvious CGI.

All of the above has very few physical proof.

Alot of the arguments is 100% "hear say" or "I believe."
Also there are few legitimate faces of UFOLOGY

Greer is a guy apparently went into the woods took a photo of a moth or butterfly and called it a "light beings"
enough said.

Wilcocks (as I said in another topic) is a attention whore, when people start to forget about him he comes out with a new random date while not forgetting to remind people about updates to his website or a new book.
When his disclosure date comes closer he down plays it. I am personally surprised this guy still has an audience. How can so many people not see this pattern? When was the last time this guy was right about anything? Yet people follow this guy.

Sure you can reply and say well there are books from astronauts, and high level former officials, I have a very good collection of UFO books. But many of these books are speculative, lacking undebunkable material, full of he said/she said. Many full of unverifiable claims.

Another Skeptics Arguments
Many if not most personal stories (like mines) are unproveable. And those who gain enough publicity and fail Lie Detectors do not help.

If the government knew anything it would have come out by now. Rather they wanted it too or not.

I can agree with this to believe that a government can keep a secret for the past 60-70+ years and now into the age of wikileaks, hackers and no one has been able to find ANYTHING and prove it. That is probably the most disturbing thing for believers, and one of the most convincing arguments for skeptics.

Basically I just wanted to get that out of my brain lol.

I can understand a Skeptics argument, ufology has been/ and will continue to be really is a speculative science until someone comes across that Legitimate Alien Signal, Photo, Video, living organism on another world, Official Announcement, etc.

I personally doubt its a fear of aliens, I think they (the skeptics) "want to know" rather as with some people have in their avatars"want to believe".

I hope I didn't offend anyone, this is my first real seriously thought out thread. I just wanted to voice my opinion.

please excuse typos, not the best typer and English is not really my first or best language.

Best piece of writing ive ever read on ufo's and aliens. I was actually going to post something like today aswell glad i didnt because you've done a much better job than i could.
Love to see what the believers have to say about this.

I want to believe in all this stuff, i mean wouldnt it just be really cool if it was true. Thing is im not a fool evidence or it didnt happen.

Star and flag for a great post, you pretty much speak my mind on the topic .. I come across as a skeptic myself but I'm also a believer because of two experiences I had for which I have no evidence.. I know what I saw and I let it go at that.. but I am very skeptic when it comes to things others post because I tend to try to go with the most plausible explanation first.. I'm not asking anyone to believe what I say I saw because I have no proof at all other than my words and I tend to be the same towards others simply because of the subject matter.

As you pointed out beautifully there is just too much junk in the mix .. you HAVE to be skeptic really in this kind of topic because there's too many weeds in the garden.. I firmly believe that if they are here, there's bound to be a breaking point eventually but we've not seen it yet ..

reply to post by TheLogicalist


I agree with just about everything you said except for the part about UFOlogy being a science. It's not a science, in fact there's really no such thing as a UFOlogist either. Anyway good post

There are a lot of absurd theories out there with absolutely no evidence. Many people take this subject a whole lot further, and add their own theories such as hybrids, reptilians, etc. I prefer researchers, like Rich Dolan, who just present the evidence and let us decide for ourselves.

Originally posted by cleverhans
There are a lot of absurd theories out there with absolutely no evidence. Many people take this subject a whole lot further, and add their own theories such as hybrids, reptilians, etc. I prefer researchers, like Rich Dolan, who just present the evidence and let us decide for ourselves.

Absolutely agree..

I've mentioned this in other posts but I still think it would be awesome to create an ats wiki that contains all of these topics with relevant information.. it would need to be moderated of course, but I think each topic should be broken out to include a section for verifiable facts, plausible theory and a section for the more far fetched theories as well to be fair, but those should be separated a bit and clearly marked .. just a fun thought for putting all this information into a central database

Smashing post old bean. Have seen a grand total of ONE possible UFO in my lifetime of 40 odd years. Which in one sense means I'm actually a lucky bugger to see one.

I've learned to take everthing with a pinch of salt now with regards to stargates, UFO fleets, NWO, reptoids and the rest.Anyway great post S&F.

I have to say that I agree that it is easy to see where genuine skeptics are comming from. However, no genuine skeptic would ignore the following:

First, some of the greater scientific minds on this planet are giving serious consideration to the idea of the existance of alien life.

Second, the amount of circumstantial evidence (eg the discovery of hundreds of exoplanets, some likely to be CAPABLE of harbouring life(even if it is proven that they do not, the capability is there) and the discovery of more extremophile lifeforms every year, surviving ever more improbable environmental circumstances) though not PROOF of anything, is certainly more weighty and important than any of the eyewitness prattle, or psychic bull spouted by the hippies.

My personal angle on the situation is like this. I believe that aliens probably exist based on the evidence of mathematical probability, which is incrediblely powerful as a tool of perception. Regarding the possibility of visitation, who can say? One cannot prove a negative, and there appears to be too little evidence to firmly support visitors to our earth. Its an impossible stalemate. I would choose to say that in a choice between belief and disbelief, I would believe, but that is because only a blithering moron discounts the possible and unproven, as being proven to be impossible.

As a believer in Extraterrestrial UFO's I think it is important to have a skeptical eye when it comes to video / photographic and even documented evidence .
Far too many people on this forum are willing to buy into youtube video's as evidence of visitation , and totally discount the more logical explanations given as they don't fit with their stated belief .

We all want evidence , just seems that some of us want it more than others

reply to post by TrueBrit


Well aliens here on earth and aliens living far far away in another galaxy are too different things.
I have no problem whatsoever believing that there is live out there somewhere. It becomes alot harder to believe when we talk about them being here on earth.
However only thing that keeps me interest in this subject are the ancient cave paintings and paintings through out history of flying crafts, could be anything but i find this interesting, its just not enough proof

reply to post by CharterZZ



Whenever i travel anywhere, whether on business or holiday in this country, or abroad

i take the opportunity to call on friends relatives and acquaintances who are anywhere

near to where i am going. So i find it very odd that any beings who have travelled through

space taking all that time and distance, do not bother to make themselves known to

us.

Excellent post! I'm in the same boat as many people posting in this thread. I want to believe... but I'm also conscious that my desire to believe is mostly based on an emotional sense that there just has to be more to it than what we're being told. At the same time, my left brain is repeating to me that, despite what the government might be lying about, despite what sparse evidence might be out there - there's just nothing very compelling to make me believe.

Most of the big names in "Ufology" are serial hoaxters with a documented history of fooling people, faking sightings, ignoring and cherry-picking evidence, and just flat-out making stuff up. These are people who, even if they were espousing the Official Story of the scientific community, would still be shunned by real scientists, because their methods do not hold up under the scrutiny of real scientific inquiry.

Originally posted by TheLogicalist
First off I'm a believer in the whole aliens are visiting.

Okay so your OP is all the reasons to be a skeptic...

Now what makes you a believer?

reply to post by TheLogicalist


Well done on a great post and logical thinking.
S&F

reply to post by rigel4

"I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets which obviously are a little more technically advanced than we are here on Earth. I feel that we need to have a top level, coordinated program to scientifically collect and analyze data from all over the earth concerning any type of encounter, and to determine how best to interface with these visitors in a friendly fashion....For many years I have lived with a secret, in a secrecy imposed on all specialists and astronauts. I can now reveal that every day, in the USA, our radar instruments capture objects of form and composition unknown to us. And there are thousands of witness reports and a quantity of documents to prove this, but nobody wants to make them public. "-Colonel L. Gordon Cooper, Mercury and Gemini Astronaut, in an address to the UN in 1985 after announcing that he had seen and chased UFOs over Germany in the 1950s. Cooper also reported a greenish object which passed by his capsule going east to west (opposite normal man-made orbits) while in orbit in May of 1963. The object was tracked by ground-based equipment in Perth, Australia. The press was told it could not question Col. Cooper on this aspect of the mission.

"I had a good friend at Roswell, a fellow officer. He had to be careful about what he said. But it sure wasn't a weather balloon, like the Air Force cover story. He made it clear to me what crashed was a craft of alien origin, and members of the crew were recovered. "-Col. Gordon Cooper"

The whole things goes like this :

People interested in ufology, don't have any physical evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial life. Skeptics on the same thread don't have any physical evidence that there is no extraterrestrial life. The same goes to religion. But, I don't want to offend any skeptics but I feel like their opinion is a little close minded (no offense). I don't want to convince anyone that there are reptilians who live 4000 years and regenerate their heads, that is a total brainwash. But at least I want to convince them that THERE IS A POSSIBILITY (an enormous possibility) that extraterrestrial life exists.

Originally posted by gortex
As a believer in Extraterrestrial UFO's :

Thank you for being precise! First, for a great many, "UFOs" have become a belief system. If "Space Brothers" are your religion, fine; but please don't confiuse that with other people wanting to understand what is actually happening. My family thinks I'm a saucer-crazed whacko, mainly because the terminology confuses them (i.e. they are ignorant on the subject). Many in MUFON think I'm a skeptic beause I want logical, clear thinking. I have decided that a great deal of evidence shows that "some" UFOs `may be some type of craft. I have absolutely no evidence that they are "extra-terrestrial" in the commonly accepted terminology. I think a great deal of evidence is in favor of these craft not coming from our civilization the way we define it. Does that make them extra-terrestrial by default? Of course not. "There are X number of civilizations studying us." Really, how do you know that? Give me evidence, please. "'They' were Buddha, Christ, etc." How do you know, and why do you believe this evidence?

The second someone uses the word "believe" in reference to UFOs, particle physics or accounting, among many other topics, they have given me a signal that they are more interested in their opinions than in actual facts. The fact is, "facts" are in short supply. Frankly, I don't think our government or any other really knows much more about UFOs than we amateurs who have followed the subject for decades. Cataloging "sightings" is fun, but hasn't advanced us much in 60+ years. Some cases stand out. I don't think we have yet mined all the information from the Cash-Landrum case, but we need to hurry. Except for whatever can be found in documentary evidence, Roswell is over. 1947 was too long ago to get reliable, first-hand eyewitness testimony, and much of what we've already gotten is suspect. I'm not discounting Roswell at all, but our window of time on that and many other cases (i.e. Kecksburg) is pretty much closed.

We need serious amateur UFO investigators who want to look at the UFO problem through a clear lens, not one clouded with Fatima, John Lear, etc. I think we will find, eventually, that the UFO phenomenon is much, much more weird than simple extraterrestrials,

Originally posted by gortex
As a believer in Extraterrestrial UFO's I think it is important to have a skeptical eye when it comes to video / photographic and even documented evidence .
Far too many people on this forum are willing to buy into youtube video's as evidence of visitation , and totally discount the more logical explanations given as they don't fit with their stated belief .

We all want evidence , just seems that some of us want it more than others

Why do you describe yourself as a believer?

You say you want evidence but evidence appears on ATS on a daily basis however from what I've seen from your posts, according to you all pictures, videos, documents and witnesses accounts on UFOs are hoax or can be explained as something else other than ET. On some occasions, you made very poor attempts to describe a UFO by calling it something else and pushing it out as fact without any proof. This is not having a skeptical eye as you describe. This is called being dismissive of anything related to UFOs because you do not believe.

Hi, I'm new to these forums (although I've been checking them on and off for months ) The first post is pretty much what I wanted to express. I am, and have been a believer in ET's/UFO's etc etc for about 13 years. It's only in recent years that the points raised in the original post have began to grate on me.

There is no evidence (ducks for cover...)

That doesn't mean I'm been ignorant, arrogant and by saying there's no evidence - I'm not trying to get a rise out of "hardcore right-wing ET extremists"! I find the whole subject fascinating and to me its the most important question: is there life out there?

People say "the evidence is all around us, open you're eyes" - it's not. It's really not. I'm trying to view this subject rationally, logically. I would LOVE to see definitive proof, be it a video, picture or better still actual psychical evidence. I trawl the net looking for new videos. All I see is blurred lights and photos of "objects" in the air that are at strange angles (angles which I'm sure craft wouldn't fly at, hence why I think someones probably thrown a frisby or ball in the air)

I think, as mentioned above that people will see what they want, to fit their views.

For example: Just look at the "alien moon base structures" on the net. They're even highlighted for you. Theres nothing there. What makes it more crazy is they are marked up outrageous things like "deep mining shaft with adjacent landing strip". When in fact - there's nothing there, and yet I really want to believe/see that there is.

All of the above doesn't mean I'm a skeptic. Just skeptical of the evidence.

Hope that makes sense.