Why Do People Believe in UFOs?: A Discovery News Trash Piece

they had UFO's in time of ww2 and nazis. just think how much this tech has advanced in secret test areas, esp in US as they seemed to have accomadated the Nazi scientists.

so is it hard to beleive that these ufos are just secret government tech. Maybe even privately owned secret crafts.

so people do see things, but then they associate the sight with something they saw in a movie or x files. and they think they have seen an et ufo.

I see ufo's every month but i only say they are ufos because they are too far to make out clearly, I followed one and actually realised it was a chinese lantern so we have to be careful

Originally posted by Ectoplasm8
I'm not conceding that they could get here. I'd have to believe that "they" actually exist, first. I DON'T concede they exist, but only the POSSIBILITY that they do....

Understood. We're going in circles largely because our opinions here differ quite a bit.

As to whether you "concede" the possibility / probability / high probability / near certainty (whatever) that other intelligent life exists, I think of it like this:
Imagine about a 5-meter fence around an American football field: 110x50x5 meters. Now fill that space up with BB's. (A little golden sphere which could fit in a standard pencil's eraser.) The number of BBs needed to fill that enclosed space is about the number of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way.

Sol, our sun, is a single ONE of those BB's....

From that visual alone, I find it really difficult to imagine that just 1 out of 300 billion is statistically significant as to any primary stellar or planetary characteristic. And our most current science is confirming this.

Or, consider... it takes about 32 years to count off 1 billion seconds. To count off 300 billion (an average estimate of # stars in our galaxy) would take nearly 10,000 years. Sun+Earth are ONE of those seconds.

So, you can require "proof" of other intelligent life before embracing the concept if you'd like. I just think that stance ignores statistical probability and the true scale of it all.

Also, those examples relate to a single galaxy, yet there are hundreds of billions more.

You wouldn't even concede the likelihood?

You continue to repeat for me to read these books, but don't lead me to a solid, verifiable, tangible object case. You also continue to make the mistake of accusing me of ignoring the "facts".

I've never characterized the ET-UFO connection as "fact." Show me where. You can't. You keep mischaracterizing my position. What I have 'accused' you of is ignoring a substantial amount of the most important data, analysis and intelligent discussion on the topic. Because that's precisely what exists in several of the listed sources, which you've admittedly not read.

I'm sorry, but I think one must be familiar with the Condon Report (for example) to consider himself "informed" re: UFOs.

Again, I am familar with probably ALL of the notable cases over the last 70 years.

From what sources?!?

I'm also familar with many other cases. This "familarity" is actually reading the cases, reading [or seeing] the testimony, any pictures [or videos] involved.

Again, is that from the most reliable sources? Do you think there are no data or ideas in the sources I mentioned that you've not already considered? Unless you've done your own statistical analyses, scientific photo/video analyses, field investigations, polling, etc, I guarantee there are...

You seem to interrput me stating my knowledge, as just as a running idea of the cases. That's not correct.

I've not said that either. I've simply said you've not read what are widely considered the most important and legitimate sources. If you're happy with that level of knowledge, great. Seriously, not every person must approach the topic in a 'scholarly' manner.

Now, if you ask me to explain the movements of an object that makes 90 degree turns and flies off at at incredible speeds, I can't.

That objects doing such things have been witnessed is a substantial concession. Do you mean this?

If I ask you to give me solid proof [of an ET/UFO connection] you can't.

Why keep asking me to give "proof" when I've conceded all along no one can? Again you mischaracterize my position. At least understand why I continually point out the difference between proof and evidence to you.

You can take your understanding of the topic and logically conclude it's highly probable that these are aliens.

Not so much "highly probable", just more likely than not. Re-read my position. (Call it 70-30??) But notice I'm not tied to some type of binary thinking, where a proposition is either proven or else it's false (or even ridiculed). I accept probabilities / likelihood. Most all of science IS probabilities. All of that takes the topic FAR from ridicule.

I take my understanding and can't logically bridge that gap until I am 100% convinced of alien beings.

Bu the denial of probabilities is actually anything but "logical." Read about 4-sigma vs. 3- vs. 2- in science, or statistics in general.

I'm curious to know how deeply your beliefs go. Do you believe in the abductions, UFO... crop circles, .. cow mutilations, Bob Lazar..., Roswell, John Lear..., Betty and Barney Hill, the "Starchild" skull...?

I'm extremely skeptical of all of them. What I consider good evidence needs more corroboration than I've seen within those topics. And some of those ideas are absolutely ridiculous, IMO.

Originally posted by TeaAndStrumpets

Originally posted by Ectoplasm8
I'm not conceding that they could get here. I'd have to believe that "they" actually exist, first. I DON'T concede they exist, but only the POSSIBILITY that they do....

Understood. We're going in circles largely because our opinions here differ quite a bit.

As to whether you "concede" the possibility / probability / high probability / near certainty (whatever) that other intelligent life exists, I think of it like this:
Imagine about a 5-meter fence around an American football field: 110x50x5 meters. Now fill that space up with BB's. (A little golden sphere which could fit in a standard pencil's eraser.) The number of BBs needed to fill that enclosed space is about the number of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way.

Sol, our sun, is a single ONE of those BB's....

From that visual alone, I find it really difficult to imagine that just 1 out of 300 billion is statistically significant as to any primary stellar or planetary characteristic. And our most current science is confirming this.

Or, consider... it takes about 32 years to count off 1 billion seconds. To count off 300 billion (an average estimate of # stars in our galaxy) would take nearly 10,000 years. Sun+Earth are ONE of those seconds.

So, you can require "proof" of other intelligent life before embracing the concept if you'd like. I just think that stance ignores statistical probability and the true scale of it all.

Also, those examples relate to a single galaxy, yet there are hundreds of billions more.

You wouldn't even concede the likelihood?

The main problem with this, though nice, optimistic, and an altogether wonderful way of looking at the universe at large which I personally at times subscribe to, is that this is statistics we're talking about.

Flip that same suggestion on it's head, and then factor for the probability of zero life existing everywhere else with the same bias for zero life as previously factored in probability for life.

You then get a Galaxy, and/or Universe filled to brimming with absolutely no life, but perhaps a few 'false' misleading positives of life, like us, on the outlying fringe of the bell curve of probability.

It's difficult to imagine that flip side as we're want to prejudice ourselves in favor of Life in consideration of the abundance we have locally.

Are we a 'false' positive? or are we a spot of data in an ocean of probabilities that we as of yet have seen due our limitations?

Logically, both sides of this need be examined equally without prejudice.
So far, we see Life everywhere locally which could be indication of a truly 'universal' constant.
So far, everywhere else we look, to the most distant stars and galaxies, we've yet to see even the slightest indication of any other intelligence or influence of intelligence.

There's abundant hope, and abundant frustration.

It's the old argument of Drake's Equation vs. Fermi's Paradox where if we wanted to be economical, someone could just yell "Drake", while in reply someone yells "Fermi", and another someone might walk in with an "Einstein", or "Hawking", but in the end, we all wind up just sounding like barking dogs.

Until we know, we don't and won't know.

Originally posted by Druscilla

The main problem with this, though nice, optimistic, and an altogether wonderful way of looking at the universe at large which I personally at times subscribe to, is that this is statistics we're talking about.

Flip that same suggestion on it's head, and then factor for the probability of zero life existing everywhere else with the same bias for zero life as previously factored in probability for life.

You then get a Galaxy, and/or Universe filled to brimming with absolutely no life, but perhaps a few 'false' misleading positives of life, like us, on the outlying fringe of the bell curve of probability.

It's difficult to imagine that flip side as we're want to prejudice ourselves in favor of Life in consideration of the abundance we have locally.

Are we a 'false' positive? or are we a spot of data in an ocean of probabilities that we as of yet have seen due our limitations?

Logically, both sides of this need be examined equally without prejudice.
So far, we see Life everywhere locally which could be indication of a truly 'universal' constant.
So far, everywhere else we look, to the most distant stars and galaxies, we've yet to see even the slightest indication of any other intelligence or influence of intelligence.

There's abundant hope, and abundant frustration.

It is possible that we are the only example of life in an otherwise lifeless universe, but if that is the case then life is the anomaly to beat all anomalies. It seems that everywhere we look there is lots and lots of everything. I'm not sure I can think of any other phenomenon that humankind has come across of which there is only one single example. What would lead us to suspect that life is any different than any other phenomenon in terms of its ubiquitousness in the cosmos? The fact that we haven't detected it yet? It's not at all clear at this point in our development that we would be able to detect - or even recognize - intelligence or the influence of intelligence were it to exist in the vastness of space.

Regardless, as Brighter has pointed out in his threads, it is unnecessary to posit the existence of life elsewhere in the universe in order to demonstrate the likely reality of UFOs. Once these objects' existence has been accepted as likely, however, the ETH becomes at least a plausible hypothesis to explain that existence. I see no reason to think that as a relatively young and sheltered intelligence (if that's what we are) we might not get our first glimpse of other intelligences in just such a manner as this.

reply to post by Druscilla


Druscilla, the historical bias has actually been against the view I described above, and in favor of something like what you've described. For century after century we thought of humanity as special, one of a kind, God's creation in his image, and so on.... That latter view is what predominated for so long largely because it's what's supported by most of the world's holy books. And only recently has that view of humanity's uniquness fallen, as science has made larger and larger portions of those holy books clearly false and thus irrelevant. But religion is what dominated the life of most people until the 1900's. That view of humanity's extreme uniqueness even infected the sciences. We thought the physical constants of the universe were precisely tuned to allow for us. How self-centered can a species be? (See the anthropic principle.)

It's only been since I was born (and I'm not even halfway there!) that one could seriously speak of the possibility of intelligent ET life and not get laughed at. It's taken centuries for this new norm -- that life is probably common, or at least not one-in-a-billion -- to have taken hold. But from the polls I've seen, it seems that view has been widely accepted. But that view is not a bias; that's a view that has broken through the natural bias (to see the universe revolving around us) as science has lit the way....

It's happened also because religion has lost its hold on much of humanity. (Again, as modern science has exposed it for what it is.) The Pope, for example, must keep admitting to these new realities -- that evolution is fact, that ET life is probable, and so on -- not because he wants to, or because the Bible says so, but only because science has made it impossible for the Church to deny such things and still maintain any credibility. But I guarantee it's a hard swallow for them. They must feel as if they're watching that book evaporate before their very eyes....

Anyway, the point is that the view I described above, about the numbers clearly favoring life elsewhere, is new. It must be new, since we've only recently learned of such huge numbers of stars and galaxies. It took an Edwin Hubble and an entirely new cosmology to even allow for the contemplation that we were not the center of the universe. And that new cosmology is all less than ~80 years old....

Also, your Fermi vs. Drake equation thing doesn't make sense to me. The Fermi Paradox assumes the widespread migration of intelligent life, so in a sense is saying that 'UFOs' are exactly what we should be seeing....

reply to post by TeaAndStrumpets

Originally posted by TeaAndStrumpets


As to whether you "concede" the possibility / probability / high probability / near certainty (whatever) that other intelligent life exists, I think of it like this:
Imagine about a 5-meter fence around an American football field: 110x50x5 meters. Now fill that space up with BB's. (A little golden sphere which could fit in a standard pencil's eraser.) The number of BBs needed to fill that enclosed space is about the number of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way.

Sol, our sun, is a single ONE of those BB's....

From that visual alone, I find it really difficult to imagine that just 1 out of 300 billion is statistically significant as to any primary stellar or planetary characteristic. And our most current science is confirming this.

Or, consider... it takes about 32 years to count off 1 billion seconds. To count off 300 billion (an average estimate of # stars in our galaxy) would take nearly 10,000 years. Sun+Earth are ONE of those seconds.

So, you can require "proof" of other intelligent life before embracing the concept if you'd like. I just think that stance ignores statistical probability and the true scale of it all.

Also, those examples relate to a single galaxy, yet there are hundreds of billions more.

You wouldn't even concede the likelihood?

Yeah, Carl Sagan used to say: "There are more stars in the universe, than all of the grains of sand on Earth's beaches". I'll concede to the "likelihood is greater" for intelligent life somewhere, than to superior intelligent life visiting us. I absolutely believe life outside of our solar system and galaxy, exists. Life, being in the form of one of many millions or possibly billions of generic life forms. Intelligent beings, as humans, aren't an easy development in the many branches of those life forms though. Only one intelligent being has evolved on earth, of millions of others and in billions of years. Life branches(evolves) into to many different types of life with a purpose of those life forms to survive and create. So, many planets will contain that simple form of life (simple, relative to human intelligence), for billions of years with no purpose or reason for an intelligent life to develop. Then, you also have to take into account the level of intelligence that a species needs to develop in order to travel within or out of it's own galaxy. In those many years of development, the chance that life would be wiped out at some point by their own hand, or say by an asteroid or meteor, rises. If you factor all that into your statistics, sure the chances are still good for intelligent life, but not at the level that which seems to be touted here on this forum. Almost everyone speaks of superior intelligent life being everywhere, but, they don't take in to account the obstacles and that it's not that easy of an accomplishment. I guess this would be more on the negative side in the last half of the Drake Equation.

Originally posted by TeaAndStrumpets
Not so much "highly probable", just more likely than not. Re-read my position. (Call it 70-30??) But notice I'm not tied to some type of binary thinking, where a proposition is either proven or else it's false (or even ridiculed). I accept probabilities / likelihood. Most all of science IS probabilities. All of that takes the topic FAR from ridicule.

I understand science doesn't use absolutes. I leave the possibility of intelligent life, out there. But, the possibilities drop and become more difficult as the levels go further down: Possibility of life> Possibility of intelligent life> Possibility of superior intelligent life> Possibility of interplanetary travel> Possibility of intergalactic travel> Possibility of interstellar travel. To within the scope of each of those means of travel, to the visiting of billions of planets, to trillions of planets and visiting one particular point. There are many many steps. It isn't an easy path.

I do ridicule certain aspects(crop circles etc) in regards to UFOs. Or people that don't use their own mind in conjunction to beliefs. Your approach to the subject should be the mainstream.

Originally posted by TeaAndStrumpets

From what sources?!?


Again, is that from the most reliable sources? Do you think there are no data or ideas in the sources I mentioned that you've not already considered? Unless you've done your own statistical analyses, scientific photo/video analyses, field investigations, polling, etc, I guarantee there are...

I can't remember where I've read all the cases throughout my life, but, I'll give the Disclosure Project as an example. Those video testimonies were biased towards the existence to ET-UFOs. Not a lot of technical data or analyses, but, stories straight from the sources. If you take any one of those cases and lead me to technical data or analyses, I doubt it will highlight anything that isn't obvious within what they already stated or will change my mind to ET UFO involvement.. More witnesses of the event... Corroborating radar... Video or photo analyses... ?? I've stated what I need in order for me to believe. You're more open minded to ET-UFO than I am, so, of course it could affirm your position more and you would see it as a scholarly approach. I'm not as open minded, but, I don't believe I'm as close minded as Philip Klass was or Michael Shermer is. I'm not a fan of either mans approach.

Originally posted by TeaAndStrumpets
Understood. We're going in circles largely because our opinions here differ quite a bit.

In circles and because the metric system never caught on in the U.S. I'll look for and read the Condon Report out of curiousity.

reply to post by Ectoplasm8


The Disclosure Project wouldn't even make the waiting list for a spot among the serious, intelligent and thoughtful material on the UFO phenomenon. You should really brush up on at least the basics of this topic. I can't imagine carrying on such an extended conversation knowing that I've not taken the time to familiarize myself with the subject in a meaningful way.

Originally posted by Druscilla

IF there is indeed a physical phenomenon occurring, then, by all means, be smart about it and bring back something that will stand up in the light of skepticism.

If it were that easy then we'd have it by now. It isn't that easy. They are the ones pulling the strings so there will never be any more evidence than some insignificant burn marks on the grass or a blip on the screen. All conventional means of gathering data fail in these environments and anywhere in close proximity to the physical craft.
.

reply to post by kronos11

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all?

An interesting short story by the late Carl Sagan, you should read it

The Dragon In My Garage

Originally posted by cripmeister
reply to post by kronos11

 

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all?

An interesting short story by the late Carl Sagan, you should read it

The Dragon In My Garage

That's a very interesting little essay by the late Carl S. there, Cripmeister. But I'm not sure I completely agree with Sagan's dragon analogy as it applies to the UFO phenomenon. For one thing we're talking about people reporting sightings of "lights" or "objects" - two things that we know exist - not people believing there is an invisible "dragon" sitting in front of them. Most UFO witnesses - if you believe the people who have interviewed them - don't claim that they saw an "alien spaceship". They just know they saw something they can't explain. Dr. James McDonald said it well:

Another characteristic in interviewing the witnesses is the tendency for the UFO witness to turn first not to the hypothesis that he is looking at a spaceship, but rather it must be an ambulance out there with a blinking red light or that it is a helicopter up there. There is a conventional interpretation considered first; only then does the witness get out of the car or patrol car and realize the thing is stopped in midair and is going backwards and has six bright lights, or something like that. Only after an economical first hypothesis does the witness, in these impressive cases, go further in his hypotheses, and finally realize he is looking at something he has never seen before.

I like Dr. Hynek's phrase for this, "escalation of hypotheses." This tendency to take a simple guess first and then upgrade it is so characteristic that I emphasize it as a very important point.

source

Lots and lots of reasonably credible and normal people all over the world and through decades of time describe seeing objects that display very common characteristics of appearance and behavior.

Dr. J. Allen Hynek came up with a loose classification system for UFO reports, and it gives one a general sense of the types of things people describe in the cases that end up in the "unknown" bin. It's helpful to note that Hynek disqualified from consideration any report in which all known natural and man-made sources could not be reasonably ruled out.

UFO reports differ in many details. But there are a number of similarities that recur in such features as shape, maneuverability, appearance, disappearance, sound and color. There are several basic observational categories into which sighting reports may be classified.

A. Relatively Distant Sightings

1. Nocturnal Lights. These are sightings of well-defined lights in the night sky whose appearance and/or motion are not explainable in terms of conventional light sources. The lights appear most often as red, blue, orange or white. They form the largest group of UFO reports.

2. Daylight Discs. Daytime sightings are generally of oval or disc- shaped, metallic-appearing objects. They can appear high in the sky or close to the ground, and they are often reported to hover. They can seem to disappear with astounding speed.

3. Radar-Visual cases. Of special significance are unidentified "blips" on radar screens that coincide with and confirm simultaneous visual sightings by the same or other witnesses. These cases are infrequent.

B. Relatively Close Sightings (within 200 yards)

1. Close Encounters of the First Kind (CE-I). Though the witness observes a UFO nearby, there appears to be no interaction with either the witness or the environment.

2. Close Encounters of the Second Kind (CE-II). These encounters include details of interaction between the UFO and the environment which may vary from interference with car ignition systems and electronic gear to imprints or burns on the ground and physical effects on plants, animals and humans.

3. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE-III). In this category, occupants of a UFO - entities that are human-like ("humanoid") or not humanlike in appearance - have been reported. There is usually no direct contact or communication with the witness. However, in recent years, reports of incidents involving very close contact - even detainment of witnesses - have increased.

source

Originally posted by Orkojoker
reply to post by Ectoplasm8

 

The Disclosure Project wouldn't even make the waiting list for a spot among the serious, intelligent and thoughtful material on the UFO phenomenon. You should really brush up on at least the basics of this topic. I can't imagine carrying on such an extended conversation knowing that I've not taken the time to familiarize myself with the subject in a meaningful way.

So, the testimony from the Iranian military pilot about the 1976 Iran UFO chase, FAA Division chief testimony about radar confirmation of a UFO, Witnesses to UFOs at Edwards Air Force Base seen on multiple radars by military personnel and various other high ranking military testimony cases, aren't taken seriously in the UFO community? Those are the "crazy" ones I guess, huh? How do you differentiate the "intelligent" cases from the non-intelligent ones? Aren't the military or professional witnesses, one of the arguments of the validity of UFO cases?

Give me one case that has been intelligently analyzed to your satisfaction and given the likelihood tick to an intelligent extraterrestrial piloted craft.

And not to hog up the thread with James McDonald stuff, but I just wanted to post the opening remarks from his testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Science and Astronautics in 1968, as I feel that they're pertinent to the topic. For anyone not familiar with Dr. McDonald, I highly advise reading what he had to say. Very smart guy with a lot of experience in this subject.

Education:

University of Omaha, Omaha, Nebraska, B.A. (Chemistry) 1942.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. (Meteorology) 1945.

Iowa State University, Ames, Ia., Ph.D. (Physics) 1951.

Professional Career:

Instructor, Dept. of Physics, Iowa State University, 1946-49.

Assistant Professor, Dept. of Physics, Iowa State University, 1950-53.

Research physicist. Cloud Physics Project, University of Chicago, 1953-54.

Associate Professor, Dept. of Physics, University of Arizona, 1954-56, Professor, 1956-57.

Associate director. Institute of Atmospheric Physics, University of Arizona, 1954-57.

Professor, Dept. of Meteorology, and Senior Physicist, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, 1958 to present [1968].

I am very pleased to have this chance to make some comments and suggestions based on my own experience to the committee, and I do wish to commend the Committee on Science and Astronautics for taking this first, and I hope very significant step, to look at the problem that has puzzled many for 20 years.

As Dr. Hynek has emphasized in his remarks, it is one of the difficulties of the problem we are talking about today that the scientific community, not just in the United States but on a world basis, has tended to discount and to regard as nonsense the UFO problem. The fact that so much anecdotal data is involved has understandably discouraged many scientists from taking seriously what, in fact, I believe is a matter of extraordinary scientific importance.

I have been studying now for about 2 years, on a rather intensive basis, the UFO problem. I have interviewed several hundred witnesses in selected cases, and I am astonished at what I have found. I had no idea that the actual UFO situation is anything like what it really appears to be.

source

Originally posted by Orkojoker

That's a very interesting little essay by the late Carl S. there, Cripmeister. But I'm not sure I completely agree with Sagan's dragon analogy as it applies to the UFO phenomenon.

The story applies to kronos11s' way of thinking about the phenomenon.

Originally posted by Orkojoker
For anyone not familiar with Dr. McDonald, I highly advise reading what he had to say. Very smart guy with a lot of experience in this subject.

Even Hector Quintanilla had respect for the guy, but he thought McDonald should have focused his energy on something useful. For anyone interested in Project Bluebook I highly recommend Quintanillas UFOs - An Air Force Dilemma

Originally posted by Ectoplasm8

Originally posted by Orkojoker
reply to post by Ectoplasm8

 

The Disclosure Project wouldn't even make the waiting list for a spot among the serious, intelligent and thoughtful material on the UFO phenomenon. You should really brush up on at least the basics of this topic. I can't imagine carrying on such an extended conversation knowing that I've not taken the time to familiarize myself with the subject in a meaningful way.

So, the testimony from the Iranian military pilot about the 1976 Iran UFO chase, FAA Division chief testimony about radar confirmation of a UFO, Witnesses to UFOs at Edwards Air Force Base seen on multiple radars by military personnel and various other high ranking military testimony cases, aren't taken seriously in the UFO community? Those are the "crazy" ones I guess, huh? How do you differentiate the "intelligent" cases from the non-intelligent ones? Aren't the military or professional witnesses, one of the arguments of the validity of UFO cases?

Well, the Iranian general was not part of the Disclosure Project, but what I find more interesting than his personal testimony (at a different event at the National Press Club) is the government document that details the case and notes the reliability and value of the information contained therein:



I'm not totally sure what is taken seriously "in the UFO community", but I know that you will not find the most compelling evidence for the reality of the phenomenon on YouTube - at least I didn't. You're going to have to read some books, and if you're already convinced that this subject isn't worthwhile then it's unlikely that you will take the time to do that. I do have lots of suggestions for you if I'm wrong.

Give me one case that has been intelligently analyzed to your satisfaction and given the likelihood tick to an intelligent extraterrestrial piloted craft.

Not exactly sure how that was supposed to come out, but I'm not "giving you" any cases. You're obviously a grownup. Do some reading like the rest of us.

Originally posted by Ectoplasm8
So, the [Disclosure Project] testimony from the Iranian military pilot about the 1976 Iran UFO chase, FAA Division chief testimony about radar confirmation of a UFO, Witnesses to UFOs at Edwards Air Force Base seen on multiple radars by military personnel and various other high ranking military testimony cases, aren't taken seriously in the UFO community? Those are the "crazy" ones I guess, huh? How do you differentiate the "intelligent" cases from the non-intelligent ones? Aren't the military or professional witnesses, one of the arguments of the validity of UFO cases?

You're being silly and argumentative, Ectoplasm. Ask yourself, how do you personally judge the credibility of any person? Why are you unable or unwilling to apply the same principles to individuals in this instance? Do you actually believe all witnesses of a certain type, or from a certain background, or who are associated with a certain person or group, must be of equal credibility? (Binary thinking strikes again....)

Are you sure you're being truly skeptical here, as opposed to engaging in outright denial? The lack of ability or willingness by you to distinguish between Disclosure Project witnesses who are credible vs. those who've been shown to lack the credentials they claimed suggests to me that you're being intentionally obtuse. You're obviously not unintelligent, and are surely able to answer each of your own questions from above. They're not the clever trap you may think....

I read "Sovereignty and the UFO" again today, which is by Political Scientists Drs. Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall. (Political Theory 2008 36: 607) And I couldn't help but notice how applicable parts of it are to much of the irrational 'skepticism' (and not true skepticism) that's found on this board, and at seemingly (though not) credible places like BadUFOs....

The following is from pp.613-614 of the pdf version, located here.

"Our argument is that UFO ignorance is political rather than scientific. To motivate this argument, however, we first need to critique UFO 'skepticism' as science. (fn31) Science derives its authority from its claim to discover, before politics, objective facts about the world. Since today these putative facts include that UFOs are not ETs, we have to show that this fact is not actually scientific.

We consider very briefly the strongest arguments for UFO skepticism and show that none justifies rejection of the ET hypothesis (ETH). Indeed, they do not come close. (fn32) It is not known, scientifically, that UFOs are not ETs, and to reject the ETH is therefore to risk a Type II error in statistics, or rejecting a true explanation. Of course, this does not mean that UFOs are ETs, either (inviting a Type I error), but it shifts the burden of proof onto skeptics to show that a Type II error has not been made. (fn33) The UFO taboo is then puzzling, and open to political critique."

------------------------------
FOOTNOTES:
31. The widely used phrase is misleading, however, because “skepticism” should imply doubt but openness, whereas in UFO discourse it has been deformed into positive denial.
32. See especially Jacques Vallee and Janine Vallee, Challenge to Science: The UFO Enigma (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1966); McDonald, “Science in Default”; Hynek, The UFO Experience; and Michael Swords, “Science and the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis in Ufology,” Journal of UFO Studies 1 (1989): 67-102.
33. cf. John Lemons, Kristin Shrader-Frechette, and Carl Cranor, “The Precautionary Principle: Scientific Uncertainty and Type I and Type II Errors,” Foundations of Science 2 (1997): 207-36.

I think Footnote 31 pretty much nails it.....

Originally posted by Orkojoker


Not exactly sure how that was supposed to come out, but I'm not "giving you" any cases. You're obviously a grownup. Do some reading like the rest of us.

I have no idea what case you find to be intelligently approached with the outcome being a probability of an ET piloted UFO. Hence: "Give me one case that has been intelligently analyzed to your satisfaction..." You've done serious, intelligent studying of the subject, I'm just asking for you to lead me to a particular case. That should be a simple request.

"Do some reading like the rest of us" is a cop-out to actually giving an answer.

Originally posted by Ectoplasm8

Originally posted by Orkojoker


Not exactly sure how that was supposed to come out, but I'm not "giving you" any cases. You're obviously a grownup. Do some reading like the rest of us.

I have no idea what case you find to be intelligently approached with the outcome being a probability of an ET piloted UFO. Hence: "Give me one case that has been intelligently analyzed to your satisfaction..." You've done serious, intelligent studying of the subject, I'm just asking for you to lead me to a particular case. That should be a simple request.

"Do some reading like the rest of us" is a cop-out to actually giving an answer.

Although I wouldn't classify this case - or any single case in isolation and out of the context of the entire phenomenon - to have "the outcome being a probability of an ET piloted UFO", I would say that the Redlands, California, reports indicate something out of the ordinary occurred - namely that a bunch of people saw what seems to be an object that cannot be explained in conventional terms. In cases like this one, in which the object described appears to be some kind of technology but behaves in ways that known technology doesn't behave, I would consider the extraterrestrial hypothesis to be one that cannot be ruled out.

However, as interesting as a case like this is, it is the patterns evident among the body of reports - not any one report in itself - that indicate to me that something real and generally unrecognized is happening.

Originally posted by Druscilla

It's the old argument of Drake's Equation vs. Fermi's Paradox where if we wanted to be economical, someone could just yell "Drake", while in reply someone yells "Fermi", and another someone might walk in with an "Einstein", or "Hawking", but in the end, we all wind up just sounding like barking dogs.

Until we know, we don't and won't know.

I hate to be so frank but it must really be a drag to be this mundane. To not wonder at the mystery of the universe because you have not seen anything more than what has been mapped out from end to end in a lab? Once you are confronted with something beyond your understanding, and in the presence of others, it is irrefutable.... it opens one to the possibility of it all.

I find that people who deny the depth of the universe are too frightened to believe in anything other than steel and concrete and they suffer deeply from an emptiness that this thinking brings. Everything nonmaterial is dismissed, relegated to the ghetto of inconclusiveness.

Just because you don't know so "we" don't know?

Incidentally, the angular size of a 55-foot diameter object at 300 feet distance - the estimate of the Redlands object - would work out to about 10 degrees.