ALIENS & UFOS Discussion Policy Not Based On Evidence But On Hearsay

At the top of each thread on the ALIENS & UFOS forum you see the following:

Aliens and UFOs: This forum is dedicated to the discussion of historic and contemporary events related to extraterrestrial encounters, UFO sightings, and speculation about related subjects. Discussion topics and follow-up responses in this forum will likely tend to lean in favor of the existence of extraterrestrials and the related conspiracies, scandals, and cover-ups. Members who would seek to refute such theories should be mindful of our tradition of supporting the examination of the extraterrestrial phenomenon on the related conspiracy theories, cover-ups, and scandals. Replies that make fun or otherwise ridicule and demean those posting honest experiences and/or questions will be removed. Members who post such responses repeatedly will be banned.

I have a problem with the wording and the meaning behind them. There are no reliable "historic and contemporary events" related to "extraterrestrial encounters". All that exist are unprobable hearsay, assumptions and speculation. No one has ever produced solid evidence of an encounter. In fact, those that have claimed encounters have usually done so to make a buck off the gullible. A perfect example of such is Travis Walton. I know that this will trigger an avalanche from his supporters and the thread may very well be hijacked by them. I don't care, not one of the believers will ever be able to produce evidence and they will react only emotionally. Travis counts on them to continue making a buck and gaining notoriety. There is no evidence either from the Hill's claim regardless of what you want to believe.

I don't have a problem with UFOs 'cause I've had my solid sightings, but the continued belief that they are extraterrestrial without any evidence gets my goat. Again it's the believers who flood the forum with their assumptions.

"cover-ups" - What cover-ups? Who says there are cover-ups about extraterrestrials? Who has supplied the evidence that they exist and that there are individuals who know more than anyone else? Where can we find the truth about alleged cover-ups? How can anyone use such a term without anything to back it up? Why does ATS take this tack? Does ATS management know something we don't? What scandals associated with extraterrestrial does ATS allege? What have they heard? Can anyone quote any source that has brought up such scandals and cover-ups?

And why does ATS support the examination of the extraterrestrial non-existent "phenomenom"? How can ATS prove that those claiming "honest experiences" actually had those experiences? Will anyone at ATS HQ come on here and explain to us why they are so pro-extraterrestrial that those claiming such experiences cannot be taken to task but should be treated with kid gloves?

I love coming to this forum to see what the latest interest is in UFOs but they are in our reality and are fun to discuss. But to promote extraterrestrials as if they were really sharing our physical reality as UFOs are seems to be a bit suspicioous.

I think ATS ought to lighten up and allow freedom of expression and ban only profanity. No one should be allowed to express bs at the expense of those who recognize the bs and want to criticize the bs'ers.

ATS, I know the ball is yours but in a public forum which you support you ought to let everyone play, the good players and the bad players. How will the bad players learn to play good if you restrict the good players to the sidelines and punish them if they move from the sidelines.

Let us have a go at them!

I see the point you make in this but i guess that's why we have the "flagged" option enabling us to separate the "bs" from the "real" witch i think that is what makes ATS so special.

Of course threads are going to lean towards and support ideas about aliens, cover ups, conspiracies.
What do u expect?

Who bloody reads those policy things away, let alone feel the need to complain about the wording.

reply to post by The Shrike
If you're arguing for your right to 'ridicule and demean those posting honest experiences and/or questions,' the same rules apply on ATS as a whole. The website seeks to maintain an atmosphere conducive to people being open about their beliefs and alleged experiences. Quite a few members resent being unable to name-call around here, but it's their right to find other sites where they can call 'skeptics' or 'believers' whatever they like.

Speaking of 'alleged,' much of your argument is hinged on the absence of the term in the forum text. So we'd have this >>

This forum is dedicated to the discussion of historic and contemporary events related to alleged extraterrestrial encounters, UFO sightings, and speculation about related subjects.

Of course, the addition or absence of the qualifier 'alleged' is simple window-dressing as we all already know that such experiences are taken at face-value or challenged.

I think ATS ought to lighten up and allow freedom of expression and ban only profanity. No one should be allowed to express bs at the expense of those who recognize the bs and want to criticize the bs'ers.

I wonder how fast you would be to alert staff if members began calling you a liar when you post about your 'alleged' UFO sightings? What if they accused you of mental illness or perhaps a bit too much drink or drugs? Senility? 'Yo Shrike! How's that tequila? Seen any aliens lately lol!!'

I'm not suggesting you are not telling the truth and I hope you understand the point being made. The forums are amongst the best in the world because civility is expected and unusual claims stand or fall by logic rather than hair-pulling and name-calling.

reply to post by Kandinsky


One thing that bothers me regarding the whole personal experience thing is (without naming names) we have certain demographics that would seem to practically live next to UFO space ports, in haunted houses, or some similar such their "experiences" are so prolific.

I put 'experiences' in deliberate quotations as, for instance, (without naming names), a member posting in this forum yesterday has a thread posting confession personal "experience" history of:
- getting messages and/or visitations from the future
- claims to be able to control ufos with his mind
- communicates telepathically with AI robots on UFOs
- is getting gangstalked by children in black vans
- films the star Sirius without even attempting to stabilize, claiming it's a UFO
- is the victim of psychotronic weapons
- communicates with entities from dimension 46

... and the stories and confessions go on and on, all claiming to be REAL actual events by just this one (unnamed) exampled member.

What is the tolerance level for this?

At what standards are we holding these confessions and personal "experiences" when the proliferation of them over such a wide variety and range of spooky subjects by just a single poster is so obviously either a medical symptom, or active user falsehood?

Granted, there's a certain degree of tolerance to be accepted regarding wild and even completely off the wall speculation, but, as it relates to personal stories and confessions, at what point is there a BS-o-meter button, ie; Alert appropriate clicking?

reply to post by Druscilla
For me it's always been quite simple and I used to spend a lot of time in this forum.

Over the years I've tended to focus my attention in the threads that have merit and ignored (not replied) most of those that, in my opinion, were garbage. I'm sceptical of pretty much everything that gets posted in the forum and accept that people are all different and have set their bars at different levels.

The foundation of the site is essentially 'user-generated content' and relies on the input of members. You or I might not be interested (or believe) in the predictable accounts of some members being visited by an endless parade of aliens. That's our choice and others actually do enjoy those threads. Likewise, I personally find little interest in the UFO videos whilst others clearly love them.

When to alert? I like to think that if a member is trolling or hoaxing, the smarter members can catch them out. Before being a mod I rarely used the alert apart for asking for other people to be applauded. I guess it's, once more, a matter of taste and opinion. Some members alert anything they don't like and would end all discussion about everything in this forum. In contrast some members flag and star everything.

Whether we like it or not, the forum appeals to a wide audience and attracts participation from all types of person (age, profession etc). Despite my run-ins with one or two serial offenders, I much prefer it the way it is rather than to enforce burdens of proof and standards of evidence.

Where can we find the truth about alleged cover-ups?

reply to post by The Shrike



thats the thing if the truth is covered up, that means the truth is hard to find and/or impossible to find because its been covered up. hence the the term cover up

reply to post by The Shrike

Aliens and UFOs: This forum is dedicated to the discussion of historic and contemporary events related to extraterrestrial encounters, UFO sightings, and speculation about related subjects. Discussion topics and follow-up responses in this forum will likely tend to lean in favor of the existence of extraterrestrials and the related conspiracies, scandals, and cover-ups. Members who would seek to refute such theories should be mindful of our tradition of supporting the examination of the extraterrestrial phenomenon on the related conspiracy theories, cover-ups, and scandals. Replies that make fun or otherwise ridicule and demean those posting honest experiences and/or questions will be removed. Members who post such responses repeatedly will be banned.

My take on this is; if you choose to engage in the "Aliens and UFO" forum, do so in the spirit of goodwill - there are possibilities and probabilities, the uncertainties and the unknown.

Sure, there are contributors that will take a decisive stance either way and that's ok - it's a discussion forum after all, and total agreement will always be the end of conversation.

reply to post by The Shrike

All that exist are unprobable hearsay, assumptions and speculation. No one has ever produced solid evidence of an encounter. In fact, those that have claimed encounters have usually done so to make a buck off the gullible.

Sounds to me like you're describing religion and every television evangelist that has ever lived.

Just sayin'.

Originally posted by The Shrike
I have a problem with the wording and the meaning behind them. There are no reliable "historic and contemporary events" related to "extraterrestrial encounters".

To me, when someone comes to public with some kind of story supposedly related to Aliens and/or UFOs, even if it's not true, that's an event related to Aliens and/or UFOs.

Take the famous Betty and Barney Hill case (I always find it amusing that the couple has the same names as the neighbours of the Flintstones, but that's a different story ). Regardless of what you think about it, it's an event related to "extraterrestrial encounters", even if it's just because that's the interpretation they gave to it.

What gets me is that witnesses be they military or civilian are not to be trusted by those whose agendas are to play down or debunk at any cost the ET source of any UFO sighting or encounter.They ignore or never include the very credible scientific data and findings from sources like Dr John Mack and Dr James E MacDonald the atmospheric physicist and meteorologist.The UFO CHRONOLOGICAL thread has lots of UFO cases backed up with FOIA documents that show something very real,unknown and in some cases objects displaying very high technological flight characteristics that have enter or left countries various restricted air spaces , now while a nice video or picture of a ET UFO landing on the Whitehouse lawn and a alien shaking the hands of the president has or is not available that is no reason to doubt the ET sources of those UFO cases that contain high strangeness due to report flight characteristics of any given airborne object .

I am just glad that these people who ignore or do not think worthy enough to include such UFO cases and the credible sources like MacDonald and Mack are not in charge of the defence of our nations air spaces or mental health professions. Evidence comes in various forms and to only concentrate on one aspect of it,(photo , video or landed UFO on Whitehouse lawn) is NOT a justifiable scientific justification to base that rejection of ALL other forms of evidence, to say that every witness or abductee is either a liar,attention seeker , delusional ,mental health problems is nonsense ,to reject without investigation or based on only one aspect of a reality is showing a transparent and obvious hidden agenda of unjustifiable rejections based on only ONE aspect of this enigma.

reply to post by The Shrike


You have the right to doubt, exactly because of the 'hearsay' existing. But you should not exclude and be certain of non-existence, exactly because it's vague and secret and evidence and secrecy do NOT go together.

What's the matter with those naysayers? Can't they realize how something they have no evidence of can still exist? Again this example:

Hypthetical case: I have invented a secret weapon. No one knows it exists, some guy did know. Ok but this guy disappeared and all that reached public was some guy who knew of it but no one heard or saw pictures of that guy, yet alone of the weapon.

Skeptics or Pseudoskeptics would come and say: There is no such weapon, there is no evidence.

And the fact: The weapon stays where it is, with no one ever reaching it again.

So does this mean it doesn't exist? See? That's why it is correct to stay open minded for possibilities if not being certain of it.

We are not talking about claiming as facts things that are not proven, just ope-minded for any possibilities, is it SO HARD?? :/

Originally posted by FeelingPure
I see the point you make in this but i guess that's why we have the "flagged" option enabling us to separate the "bs" from the "real" witch i think that is what makes ATS so special.

edit on 25-11-2012 by FeelingPure because: missing words

Flagging does NOTHING and means NOTHING. Making ATS special? No it brings out attention seekers who will post anything to get that flag for silly self gratification.

Saying it separates BS from "real" is laughable. It should be about content. The flag system is only there to appease attention seekers and we have many who post crap in the UFO forum and get flagged to no end, that doesn't mean their thread is "real." Many great threads get ignored!

I really wish they'd do away with flags, then more people would actually have to READ a thread and make their opinion instead of going by flag count.

Look at all the top flagged threads that ended up in hoax?!?! Yea flags didnt seem to weed that BS out did it?

reply to post by The Shrike


Well, since you’re claiming solid sightings, it might be helpful if you would elaborate, with drawings or detailed descriptions. At least some exterior features of a mysterious object allow somewhat informed conjecture about it.

Also, what alternative(s) to the ETH do you favor?

I have mentioned in more than one thread the possibility (albeit remote) that humans already in space during a catastrophe that knocked a more advanced human society back to the Stone Age 20,000 years or so ago may have survived and developed and, unable to help the survivors on Earth much, decided to only observe, while developing the ability to protect Earth from asteroid strikes and even a possible future alien invasion. Another theory that implicates humans is the notion of a secret society that uses technology based on the work of Nikola Tesla.

Originally posted by Kandinsky
snip

I don't see you nor any other Mods getting involved when your beloved believers think it's alright to fling hatred, insults, and disrespect on those that do not agree with their distorted beliefs. You'd think that ATS management would support those exhibiting intelligence, common sense, reason and logic all of which are absent in believers' boring threads, usually pushing religion and threads that have no connection to the forum's name ALIENS & FORUMS. A fresh breath by the name of Druscilla is getting insulted by the OP and no one comes around and tell the OP to stop using offending language and deal with the thread's topic. These peoples' POV are not subject to criticism 'cause they have the support of ATS.

It's those such as me, Druscilla, Ectroplasm8, Jim Oberg, Phage and a few other thinkers that have to put with less than friendly comments from the believers who rarely, IF EVER, are censored by the MOds.

Treat all of us equally. Get on the believers' case to try to improve their mentally-challenged posts and be glad that thinkers think coming here and contributing is worth the hassle.

Monitor the threads better and get rid of the duplicates and get rid of the threads with religious terms on the title. The forum IS ALIENS & UFOS. Restrict the conversations to those two topics. How dare the religious be allowed to flourish here with ATS' protection?

The bottom line of what I'm trying to say is that this being a public forum open to all, as long as civility is practiced, we "skeptics/debunkers/non-believers" have to get along with the opposite crowd. And we try. But believers are venomous and they get away with it because ATS offers a protective umbrella to them so anything goes.

Believers should be cautioned by management that they are free to post whatever they like but it would be better if they were to offer material that is not so bizarre that there is no connection to reality 'cause if it's not rooted in reality a common sense conversation cannot take place.

There have to be some standards. Or just retitle the forum WILLY-NILLY ALIENS & UFOS!

Your comments are seriously appreciated.

Originally posted by DocHolidaze

Where can we find the truth about alleged cover-ups?

reply to post by The Shrike

 

thats the thing if the truth is covered up, that means the truth is hard to find and/or impossible to find because its been covered up. hence the the term cover up

Yes, but then who knows when something has been covered up if such cover--ups are impossible to find? This is the same argument as those who claim that NASA airbrushes photos of lunar structures/anomalies. But at no time has anyone posted 2 similar photos side by side one showing the structure/anomaly and the other one airbrushed.

When people claim cover-up, they really don't know unless they were involved in a situation that became covered up and those involved cannot find any trace of the situation they were involved in. I haven't heard of any, just conspiracy talk such as the government is hiding alien bodies. The truth is not necessarily covered up, those complaining are not satisfied with what they've found out and think there's more.

Originally posted by IamAbeliever
reply to post by The Shrike

 

All that exist are unprobable hearsay, assumptions and speculation. No one has ever produced solid evidence of an encounter. In fact, those that have claimed encounters have usually done so to make a buck off the gullible.

Sounds to me like you're describing religion and every television evangelist that has ever lived.

Just sayin'.

edit on 25-11-2012 by IamAbeliever because: (no reason given)

As a side note you are correct about religion. But it is just as prevalent in UFOlogy. However, what I say above has to do with alleged aliens and their alleged activities all of which are hearsay with the believers being most vocal without producing a shred of evidence. If a court of law can reject hearsay, then all of us should also except the problem is endemic with believers being the guilty party and believers cannot police themselves. We, that demand evidence to support claims, are the police. And if we have to call a spade a spade, we should be allowed to and then the believer should either admit that their claim does not hold water because we have been able to show the leak and, hopefully, learn to think differently from that example.

I'm always trying to improve myself by self-educating and learning is such a pleasure. But believers do not seem to have the same desire and wind up being gullible believers for whom evidence is immaterial.

reply to post by The Shrike


there are people that knew the world was flat, because there was no evidence to say otherwise, but alas evidence was uncovered, and what was once fact is now false. when we close are mind we hinder discovery. please stop trying to close peoples minds

reply to post by The Shrike


Have you ever examined a substantial number or at least any of the cases in Karl12s' "Puerto Rico-series"? If not, it would seem you're more concerned with the 'gullible believers' then actually finding the truth. If you have, what do you think?

Originally posted by ArMaP

Originally posted by The Shrike
I have a problem with the wording and the meaning behind them. There are no reliable "historic and contemporary events" related to "extraterrestrial encounters".

To me, when someone comes to public with some kind of story supposedly related to Aliens and/or UFOs, even if it's not true, that's an event related to Aliens and/or UFOs.

Take the famous Betty and Barney Hill case (I always find it amusing that the couple has the same names as the neighbours of the Flintstones, but that's a different story

). Regardless of what you think about it, it's an event related to "extraterrestrial encounters", even if it's just because that's the interpretation they gave to it.

I appreciate what you said but humans have a propensity for lying for many reasons with the most popular one being financial gain. Except in countries where free speech doesn't exist or is restricted, most of us enjoy freedom of speech. That freedom is abused because certain claims are rarely challenged and so are allowed to take on a life of their own and eventually become "factual". Many claims posted on ALIENS & UFOS are challengeable and should be to clear the air. But some members, nay, most of them, are so sold on their beliefs that if an opposing POV is presented they lose their cool and behave inappropriately and the Mods rarely appear to calm the disgruntled believers' passion for verbal abuse.

Extraterrestrial encounters are mythical but they run rampant on this and all forums and are harbored by management. It has to be accepted if one wants to continue being a member but it's an aggravating situation which is one-sided when the believers' lose respect and are allowed to do so.

Your 2-cents were well spent.