UFO Testimonies By Cosmonauts and Astronauts and U.S. Presidents

JimOberg
Where did 'delusions' pop up? Another 'straw man' that's irrelevant to the overwhelming majority of UFO reports, which involve misinterpretation and misperception.

And that process is not random, it's cultural based, as conjurers and other entertainers who elicit such perceptual malfunctions for a living, have always known. They can get MOST of an audience to misinterpret cues in unison.

You see, when visual stimuli are partial, that which you expect to see, with your brain filling in details from your own past experience. The process is automatic and subconscious, unless one is specifically trained to avoid it -- and few people ever are.

But 'delusions'? Forgive me for yawning.

I am very wary of viewpoints that depend on asserting that otherwise normal people are not seeing straight. Richard Dawkins relies heavily on this approach. After all, if they are seeing straight the game is up, the debunker must accept the evidence as given and there you have it. In other words, this undermining of people's perception, in such a wholesale manner, is a desperate attempt to dismiss evidence that cannot otherwise be put away by the debunker. You can defeat almost any argument by accusations of delusion or just politely suggesting that they are not seeing/thinking straight. As for your analogy with conjuring tricks - this is anemic, you cannot compare these subtleties with someone who says they saw a machine in the sky. It is different by orders of magnitude. Have you got anything better than academic conjuring? This kind of argument, prevalent among debunkers, is another retreat into a corner. It is only a step above swamp gas.

As for delusions - your argument is along these lines even though you don't use the word in the article I referred to. And radar tracking is not delusional nor are pilots who have chased these things...

reply to post by EnPassant


You've put your finger on the nub of the conflict -- anybody is free to just decide how accurate or inaccurate he wants witnesses to be in reporting what they were watching. There is no measured 'accuracy rate', it's all presumption for the convenience of whomever is doing the presuming.

This is why i think missle and space events can be SO critical to advancing UFO studies. They provide well defined visual stimuli and they induce well documented eyewitness reports. A comparison of perceptions made from various categories of stimuli -- launch plumes, post-orbiting fuel dumps, reentry fireballs, fireball swarms from booster breakups, and others -- can be gathered and then specific patterns of misperception identifed.

I've spent a lot of time doing this. None of the mainstream ufologists want anything to do with it, because the preliminary results show a striking range of consistent misperceptions that resemble in most if not all ways the standard perceptions of 'unsolved' UFO reports.

Can't have that. Better to keep 'assuming' witness performance quality, rather than test it, measure it, and risk having to modify your fundamental beliefs.

How well has this approach been working, really?

reply to post by EnPassant

I am very wary of viewpoints that depend on asserting that otherwise normal people are not seeing straight. Richard Dawkins relies heavily on this approach. After all, if they are seeing straight the game is up, the debunker must accept the evidence as given and there you have it. In other words, this undermining of people's perception, in such a wholesale manner, is a desperate attempt to dismiss evidence that cannot otherwise be put away by the debunker.

My viewpoint is from a whole other perspective then that of "the debunker". In fact, just prior to joining here, I was well on my way to being a full fledged believer. The "vile debunker rhetoric" was right on the edge of my tongue. Even now, when I see a link to some skeptic web site, I cringe. What changed me was my other interests in psychology, AI, perception, yada, yada, yada...and what I found here was a complete lack of any real information having to do with perception and yet the whole phenomenon is entirely based on perception.

You would be very surprised at the real information out there concerning topics like false memory and hallucination but of real interest here is just the basic psych 101 stuff that is completely ignored or just made up. It doesn't take much to "see" a UFO or even remember something completely wrong or even entirely fictitious. So I am not a debunker, I have no interest in Richard Dawkins. I even hate Oberg as much as anyone! But on this, he is spot on.

EnPassant

ZetaRediculian

EnPassant

Here's a whole bunch of delusional categories-

www.psychologytoday.com...

You lost me. Are we talking about the beliefs of people based on the misunderstanding of basic concepts and their inventions of new statistical maths?

You are complicating a very very simple thing. What are the chances that delusions could be so consistent across time, geographic borders and, most importantly, barriers that prevent people knowing about other's experiences?

Even more simply: how could a person have a similar delusion, within very limited parameters, that mirrors another's when there is no cross contamination?

your consistent misuse of the word "delusion" is bizarre. It's actually hard to answer your question since I really can't tell what you are really meaning. Delusions and misperceptions are different things. Your link that you provided just confused the issue even more. A "delusion" is a persistent belief despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. As in the classic looney toons guy who thinks he is Napoleon or someone who is paranoid and is usually associated with mental illness.

A delusion is a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary.[1] As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, or other effects of perception.

Please clarify what you are meaning.

Add:

but of real interest here is just the basic psych 101 stuff that is completely ignored or just made up

reply to post by K-PAX-PROT

"My own present opinion, based on two years of careful study, is that UFOs are probably extraterrestrial devices engaged in something that might very tentatively be termed 'surveillance'."

-Dr James McDonald before Congress, 1968.

1967 - Ulric Neisser founded cognitive psychology.

en.wikipedia.org...

Cognitive psychology is the study of mental processes such as "attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, and thinking.

en.wikipedia.org...

So the field of study he would have needed to draw from didn't even exist when he started his 2 year study. Just to put things in perspective. How are his conclusions relevant today?

1974 - Elizabeth Loftus began publishing papers on the malleability of human memory, the Misinformation Effect, and false memory syndrome and its relation to recovered memory therapy.

2013 - On April 2 U.S. President Barack Obama announced the 10-year BRAIN Initiative to map the activity of every neuron in the human brain.

JimOberg
reply to post by EnPassant

 

You've put your finger on the nub of the conflict -- anybody is free to just decide how accurate or inaccurate he wants witnesses to be in reporting what they were watching. There is no measured 'accuracy rate', it's all presumption for the convenience of whomever is doing the presuming.

This is why i think missle and space events can be SO critical to advancing UFO studies. They provide well defined visual stimuli and they induce well documented eyewitness reports. A comparison of perceptions made from various categories of stimuli -- launch plumes, post-orbiting fuel dumps, reentry fireballs, fireball swarms from booster breakups, and others -- can be gathered and then specific patterns of misperception identifed.

I've spent a lot of time doing this. None of the mainstream ufologists want anything to do with it, because the preliminary results show a striking range of consistent misperceptions that resemble in most if not all ways the standard perceptions of 'unsolved' UFO reports.

Can't have that. Better to keep 'assuming' witness performance quality, rather than test it, measure it, and risk having to modify your fundamental beliefs.

How well has this approach been working, really?

Ok I accept that when there is material such as shuttle footage to be analysed there is a case to be answered but when it comes to analysing testimony the similarities between cases is so strong a statistical picture is built up and this picture has very narrow parameters, so much so that one investigator (Jenny Randles) says that the reports are "tedious" in their repetitiveness. This strongly suggests that witnesses are seeing the same thing and are not mis perceiving. This is what I mean when I say the analysis takes on a statistical, and therefore mathematical, force. So, this approach, in statistical terms, takes on the character of proper scientific analysis. You might like to read the first 30 pages of Randles' book Abductions.

ZetaRediculian
reply to post by K-PAX-PROT

 

"My own present opinion, based on two years of careful study, is that UFOs are probably extraterrestrial devices engaged in something that might very tentatively be termed 'surveillance'."

-Dr James McDonald before Congress, 1968.

1967 - Ulric Neisser founded cognitive psychology.

en.wikipedia.org...

Cognitive psychology is the study of mental processes such as "attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, and thinking.

en.wikipedia.org...

So the field of study he would have needed to draw from didn't even exist when he started his 2 year study. Just to put things in perspective. How are his conclusions relevant today?

1974 - Elizabeth Loftus began publishing papers on the malleability of human memory, the Misinformation Effect, and false memory syndrome and its relation to recovered memory therapy.

2013 - On April 2 U.S. President Barack Obama announced the 10-year BRAIN Initiative to map the activity of every neuron in the human brain.

I saw a three-wheel scooter recently; two wheels in front. As a matter of fact I saw two of them on the same day. A few days later I read that they are now on sale in a certain outlet. There really are 3-wheel scooters. It was NOT a Volkswagen. THEY EXIST. They are here on our planet-
thekneeslider.com...

reply to post by ZetaRediculian


Yes, ufology is poisoned with this stuff but there is now enough information out there to make a strong case. This information was sufficient in 1980, even in 1960... When you apply the 'hoax' or 'misperception' theories to all the well researched cases they don't make a convincing argument. And, most importantly, there is the in depth analysis and intelligent assessment of things such as, for example, the discovery of cases that were buried in the archives decades before abductions became mainstream. These old cases have the same factors as the modern cases such as missing time, the sudden absence of sounds during an encounter and so on. The 'template' was buried in the archives for years and could not have cross contaminated modern cases. The conclusion must be that modern cases are, by and large, accurate accounts. This is the kind of analysis and astute reasoning that is required...

EnPassant
reply to post by ZetaRediculian

 

Yes, ufology is poisoned with this stuff but there is now enough information out there to make a strong case....

Wow, EP, these posts are awesomely written and very solid. I've read them twice and will do so again, and I urge everyone to do so. I've rarely seen the statistical argument put as strongly and succinctly. Thank you for putting in the time and effort.

You could well be right. There are indeed statistical techniques to handle noisy data that accepts and accommodates an unknown amount of garble in raw data.

My academic background is mathematics [although not statistics -- although I've studied enough to joke to convenience store clerks that I don't buy lottery tickets because "It's against my religion -- I'm a mathematician!"]. And my more practical career experience in engineering operations and reliability has overlain the theory with reality.

But on point: my studies of the existing UFO literature as it misused statistical analysis of SOVIET cases alerted me to the folly such an approach invariably led to.

My article was published thirty years ago. I urge you to read the whole thing in light of your own line of argument.

The Great Soviet UFO Coverup
By James E. Oberg
(First published in the MUFON UFO Journal, OCTOBER 1982
www.debunker.com...

In his own introduction to the pirated English-language edition published by CUFOS, Dr. Richard Haines particularly stressed the importance of the Soviet study: "It should prove to become a standard reference on the library shelves of those who seek to identify the core identity of the anomalous atmospheric phenomena" - but in the two years following its publication, there is no evidence that even a single Western UFOlogist was ever really interested in finding the "core identity" (instead, they concentrated on the more attractive "statistical results").

The UFOs in the Soviet study were nearly all genuine, Haines insisted: there was a "lack of evidence for the reports being based on hallucinations or other misperceptions.. .The reports represent currently unknown phenomena, being completely different in nature in an 'overwhelming majority of cases' from known atmospheric optics effects or technical experiments in the atmosphere." As for the proportion of IFOs (such as hallucinations or false reports), "their percentage is small, so that they have little effect on the statistical properties of the sample under consideration." But as has been shown, these "false reports" actually must comprise an absolute majority of the cases and they thus clearly overwhelm the parameters of any "true UFO" residue. Haines had absolutely no justification for making the sanguine assertions which he placed in his foreword.

Hynek in turn again enthusiastically embraced the report at the Smithsonian UFO Symposium in Washington, D.C., in September 1980, where he stressed the qualifications and scientific credentials of the witnesses: "Forty two percent were made by scientific workers and engineers, and an amazing seven and a half percent were made by astronomers. ...It becomes very much harder, in fact from my personal viewpoint, impossible, to find a trivial solution for all UFO reports, which of course is the contention of the skeptics, if one weighs and considers the caliber of some of the witnesses."

In light of the realization that the most spectacular misperceptions of the FOBS pseudo-UFOs came from astronomers at the Kazan and Kislovodsk Observatories, Hynek's assertion is exposed as unjustified at best and self-delusion at worst. "Impossible" is what Hynek considered it to be for the Gindilis data to have trivial solutions - but most of it did so have.

(This point is worth pursuing a bit farther since it apparently is one of Hynek's most controversial and questionable attitudes towards UFOs. Later he said, "It was actually the nature and character of many of the witnesses I personally worked with over many years that finally caused me to change my mind about UFOs. As a scientist I resisted the evidence and felt impelled to seek a normal explanation at all costs." But with the Gindilis data, Hynek evidently concluded that the qualifications of the witnesses -- fellow astronomers in particular! -- relieved him of the responsibility to seek just such normal explanations (that is, to be a scientist). It was "impossible" for them to be mistaken - but they were, and he was, too. He did not have to wax so enthusiastic over the unverified cases, but he did, and now must face the consequences.)

An article jointly authored by Hynek and Haines appeared in the Journal of UFO Studies, volume II (1980). It stressed the "similarity of results" of the Soviet statistical study with other Western studies. Despite the concentration of 1967 cases (JEO: i.e., mostly IFOs!), "The essential agreement of the Soviet study with those made in other countries shows that this does not seem to have introduced a temporal bias." However, it turns out that this conclusion proved exactly the opposite of what Hynek and Haines thought it proved, to wit, that a statistically manipulated collection of IFO cases (which actually comprise the heart of the Gindilis Report) gives numerical results absolutely indistinguishable from similar manipulations of allegedly true-UFO cases. Ergo, the class of UFOs and the class of IFOs are really statistically indistinguishable, a conclusion which skeptics (and Allan Hendry) have been asserting all along

I wanted to show that the 'IFO core' of the reports -- top secret test flights of a space-to-Earth nuclear warhead delivery system -- dominated any other potential 'signal', a view that went unrecognized at the time -- and still does to this day -- in ufology.

reply to post by EnPassant

I saw a three-wheel scooter recently; two wheels in front. As a matter of fact I saw two of them on the same day. A few days later I read that they are now on sale in a certain outlet. There really are 3-wheel scooters. It was NOT a Volkswagen. THEY EXIST. They are here on our planet-

I found this to be of interest as well:

The cost of eggs will vary depending on the size and the brand of eggs. White eggs are cheaper than brown eggs and eggs comes small, medium, large and extra large which the prices starts about $1.39- $3.39 a dozen.

ZetaRediculian
reply to post by EnPassant


I found this to be of interest as well:
The cost of eggs will vary depending on the size and the brand of eggs. White eggs are cheaper than brown eggs and eggs comes small, medium, large and extra large which the prices starts about $1.39- $3.39 a dozen.

It all makes sense now!

ZetaRediculian
reply to post by EnPassant

 

I saw a three-wheel scooter recently; two wheels in front. As a matter of fact I saw two of them on the same day. A few days later I read that they are now on sale in a certain outlet. There really are 3-wheel scooters. It was NOT a Volkswagen. THEY EXIST. They are here on our planet-

I found this to be of interest as well:

The cost of eggs will vary depending on the size and the brand of eggs. White eggs are cheaper than brown eggs and eggs comes small, medium, large and extra large which the prices starts about $1.39- $3.39 a dozen.

You are willfully ignoring the point which is that even fleeting glimpses(my sightings of the 3-wheeled scooters were only 1 or 2 seconds duration) are usually accurate. Most people see what they are looking at.

EnPassant

ZetaRediculian
reply to post by EnPassant

 

I saw a three-wheel scooter recently; two wheels in front. As a matter of fact I saw two of them on the same day. A few days later I read that they are now on sale in a certain outlet. There really are 3-wheel scooters. It was NOT a Volkswagen. THEY EXIST. They are here on our planet-

I found this to be of interest as well:

The cost of eggs will vary depending on the size and the brand of eggs. White eggs are cheaper than brown eggs and eggs comes small, medium, large and extra large which the prices starts about $1.39- $3.39 a dozen.

You are willfully ignoring the point which is that even fleeting glimpses(my sightings of the 3-wheeled scooters were only 1 or 2 seconds duration) are usually accurate. Most people see what they are looking at.

Exactly.

That has an implication.

Some people do NOT 'see' what they are looking at.

We don't really know, from measurable experiments, how often that happens.

I suggest that analysis of well documented known stimuli can provide hitherto unavailable insights into the scale of such misperception.

So far, conflicting points of view merely reinforce their views by sincerely expressing convenient assumptions.

We can do better -- and smarter.

JimOberg

EnPassant
reply to post by ZetaRediculian

 

Yes, ufology is poisoned with this stuff but there is now enough information out there to make a strong case....

Wow, EP, these posts are awesomely written and very solid. I've read them twice and will do so again, and I urge everyone to do so. I've rarely seen the statistical argument put as strongly and succinctly. Thank you for putting in the time and effort.

You could well be right. There are indeed statistical techniques to handle noisy data that accepts and accommodates an unknown amount of garble in raw data.

My academic background is mathematics [although not statistics -- although I've studied enough to joke to convenience store clerks that I don't buy lottery tickets because "It's against my religion -- I'm a mathematician!"]. And my more practical career experience in engineering operations and reliability has overlain the theory with reality.

But on point: my studies of the existing UFO literature as it misused statistical analysis of SOVIET cases alerted me to the folly such an approach invariably led to.

My article was published thirty years ago. I urge you to read the whole thing in light of your own line of argument.

The Great Soviet UFO Coverup
By James E. Oberg
(First published in the MUFON UFO Journal, OCTOBER 1982
www.debunker.com...

In his own introduction to the pirated English-language edition published by CUFOS, Dr. Richard Haines particularly stressed the importance of the Soviet study: "It should prove to become a standard reference on the library shelves of those who seek to identify the core identity of the anomalous atmospheric phenomena" - but in the two years following its publication, there is no evidence that even a single Western UFOlogist was ever really interested in finding the "core identity" (instead, they concentrated on the more attractive "statistical results").

The UFOs in the Soviet study were nearly all genuine, Haines insisted: there was a "lack of evidence for the reports being based on hallucinations or other misperceptions.. .The reports represent currently unknown phenomena, being completely different in nature in an 'overwhelming majority of cases' from known atmospheric optics effects or technical experiments in the atmosphere." As for the proportion of IFOs (such as hallucinations or false reports), "their percentage is small, so that they have little effect on the statistical properties of the sample under consideration." But as has been shown, these "false reports" actually must comprise an absolute majority of the cases and they thus clearly overwhelm the parameters of any "true UFO" residue. Haines had absolutely no justification for making the sanguine assertions which he placed in his foreword.

Hynek in turn again enthusiastically embraced the report at the Smithsonian UFO Symposium in Washington, D.C., in September 1980, where he stressed the qualifications and scientific credentials of the witnesses: "Forty two percent were made by scientific workers and engineers, and an amazing seven and a half percent were made by astronomers. ...It becomes very much harder, in fact from my personal viewpoint, impossible, to find a trivial solution for all UFO reports, which of course is the contention of the skeptics, if one weighs and considers the caliber of some of the witnesses."

In light of the realization that the most spectacular misperceptions of the FOBS pseudo-UFOs came from astronomers at the Kazan and Kislovodsk Observatories, Hynek's assertion is exposed as unjustified at best and self-delusion at worst. "Impossible" is what Hynek considered it to be for the Gindilis data to have trivial solutions - but most of it did so have.

(This point is worth pursuing a bit farther since it apparently is one of Hynek's most controversial and questionable attitudes towards UFOs. Later he said, "It was actually the nature and character of many of the witnesses I personally worked with over many years that finally caused me to change my mind about UFOs. As a scientist I resisted the evidence and felt impelled to seek a normal explanation at all costs." But with the Gindilis data, Hynek evidently concluded that the qualifications of the witnesses -- fellow astronomers in particular! -- relieved him of the responsibility to seek just such normal explanations (that is, to be a scientist). It was "impossible" for them to be mistaken - but they were, and he was, too. He did not have to wax so enthusiastic over the unverified cases, but he did, and now must face the consequences.)

An article jointly authored by Hynek and Haines appeared in the Journal of UFO Studies, volume II (1980). It stressed the "similarity of results" of the Soviet statistical study with other Western studies. Despite the concentration of 1967 cases (JEO: i.e., mostly IFOs!), "The essential agreement of the Soviet study with those made in other countries shows that this does not seem to have introduced a temporal bias." However, it turns out that this conclusion proved exactly the opposite of what Hynek and Haines thought it proved, to wit, that a statistically manipulated collection of IFO cases (which actually comprise the heart of the Gindilis Report) gives numerical results absolutely indistinguishable from similar manipulations of allegedly true-UFO cases. Ergo, the class of UFOs and the class of IFOs are really statistically indistinguishable, a conclusion which skeptics (and Allan Hendry) have been asserting all along

I wanted to show that the 'IFO core' of the reports -- top secret test flights of a space-to-Earth nuclear warhead delivery system -- dominated any other potential 'signal', a view that went unrecognized at the time -- and still does to this day -- in ufology.

edit on 10-9-2013 by JimOberg because: add ex text

Point taken but! - one must consider the sample that Jenny Randles took and take note of the background factors such as multiple witness sightings, the mental stability of the witnesses, the almost zero probability of witnesses making up such things as car engines stalling in cases where the witnesses knew nothing about ufology, and the physical effects such as migrane etc. In other words, the factors under consideration are very strong and well defined. There is no room here for weird atmospheric effects or errors of perception here; how could two people misperceive their car engine stalling? How could they misperceive the shutting down of electrical systems? How could they see similar beings in the weeks that followed? The factors being analysed and cross referenced are of such an unmistakable and circumscribed nature that they are most unlikely to be anomalies of perception.

I am not (only) talking about fully fledged mathematical analysis, I am talking about the general common sense statistical nature of the events - for example, what are the chances that the next 10 people you meet will be bald, left-handed insurance salesmen? You don't have to do in depth analysis to see that the chances are almost nil. Common sense will answer the question for you and yet, your common sense would be guided by the essentially statistical nature of the way experience comes to us. It is not necessary to do math to see that a statistical picture is being automatically built up. Then, after ordinary analysis is done, the question is asked "What are the chances..." and the existences of this question shows how experience has a naturally statistical nature.

So, what are the chances that two people who don't know each other and know almost nothing about ufology would have an error of perception that has their car engine stalling when a bright light in the sky approaches them? What are the chances that these events would be followed by an out of the body experience in both instances? Is there a mental disease known as bright-light-engine-stall-OBE-syndrome? If there was they would, no doubt, make a pill to cure it...

ZetaRediculian
reply to post by K-PAX-PROT

 

"My own present opinion, based on two years of careful study, is that UFOs are probably extraterrestrial devices engaged in something that might very tentatively be termed 'surveillance'."

-Dr James McDonald before Congress, 1968.

1967 - Ulric Neisser founded cognitive psychology.

en.wikipedia.org...

Cognitive psychology is the study of mental processes such as "attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, and thinking.

en.wikipedia.org...

So the field of study he would have needed to draw from didn't even exist when he started his 2 year study. Just to put things in perspective. How are his conclusions relevant today?

1974 - Elizabeth Loftus began publishing papers on the malleability of human memory, the Misinformation Effect, and false memory syndrome and its relation to recovered memory therapy.

2013 - On April 2 U.S. President Barack Obama announced the 10-year BRAIN Initiative to map the activity of every neuron in the human brain.

Simple, real visual stimuli caught on radar then witnessed by other individuals of the SAME stimuli ,(UFO), then pilots being ordered to scramble and engage or investigate the visual stimuli caught on radar then witnessed by other individuals is why it is relevant. Please produce credible evidence that all independent witnesses in the cases McDonald investigated were simply suffering from a mental discrepancy or were victims of the malleability of human memory, the Misinformation Effect, and false memory syndrome and its relation to recovered memory therapy.

You are i feel really scrapping the bottom of the debunking barrel if you are seriously offering the conclusion that the same people can be suffering from an illusionary visual stimuli that not only was recorded on radar, had fighter jets engaging them exct..

Give McDonald some credibility after all he was in so much more of a credible and scientific position than you..

Since when did radars record or multiple witnesses see or be experiencing Cognitive psychology ,of mental processes such as "attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, and thinking ..

Are you seriously suggesting that a renowned atmospheric physicist was basing all his conclusions on the witness data , mainly from military witnesses in some cases more than one wittiness to any UFO report, that was nothing more than Cognitive psychology, if that is your conclusions then the military had some real mental problems with most of its base commanders and fighter pilots,, i am just glad that you are no where near any decision making when it comes to any military defense of my countries air spaces , do you really think that these pilots ect even today who are reporting things in the air when be aloud any were near a fighter jet... seriously...., to suggest that ALL UFO cases involving military witnesses are all down to mental misconceptions, stimuli and false memory traits is nothing short of a real disrespect to all those brave pilots ect who have had the guts to come forward with their personal testimonies and that McDonald was a victim to the data of he cases he investigated ....

reply to post by EnPassant

You are willfully ignoring the point

nothing willfull about it.

reply to post by K-PAX-PROT


So how did McDonald miss this fantastic information? How come he could not conclude without a doubt that ET was here? -500 interviews.
-can only conclude ETH is a possibility
-Based on that there was no other competing explainations 45 years ago.
-Not based on witness testimony
-Branches of psychology dealing specifically with perception barely existing as a field of study

How can this be?

reply to post by K-PAX-PROT


Let me ask you something. What gives you the right to disregard 45 years worth of research and development in a respected field? What credentials do you possess to disregard the last 45 years of advancement?

Instead you hide behind what someone said in an era where people with downs syndrome were called mongoloids because they looked Asian and homosexuals were considered mentally Ill.

Are you suggesting that we still call these people mongaloid retards and are you saying that gays should put In mental hospitals?

How easy it would be to hide behind everything Jim oberg said. Do I do that? Hell no. I think for myself. Man up!

Everyone's comments are fantastically good, KPAX you're really shining, Sorry I'm distracted, no slights intended.

Is the pattern of similarities imposed by the phenomenon, or by the selection process that brings like reports to like-minded compilers?

There is one factor in all this that often gets overlooked and it is as follows. Scientists often study passive phenomena; astronomers gaze at the sky and don't imagine that the stars will respond when examined. Biologists look through microscopes at bugs that don't know they are being investigated. Chemists experiment with docile materials and so on...

But the ufonauts (if they exist)? They are not passive. They are clever and they understand human psychology. They are manipulating our perception of them.

Example: I once read an account of a ufo on the ground and the aliens were engaged in ridiculous behavior, throwing rocks around the place. Why were they doing this?

Hypothesis: This was a real encounter. The witness described what he saw. The aliens were behaving in this ridiculous manner to discredit the witness. Why? Because they want only a few people to believe in them. By behaving in this manner they engineer a kind of psychological filter that draws a few people but sends most away. Clever buggers.

Hoax theory: Why would a hoaxer make up such a ridiculous story? Not a hoax.

Delusion theory: Unlikely given the integrity of the above hypothesis.

These aliens are involved in surreal theatrics. They create a theatrical interface between them and humanity and in doing so they manipulate the level of belief in them among the human population. They are the ones who decide what percentage of people believe. They don't want all of us to believe. Through their theatrics they carefully calibrate the belief level. If it wanes too much there can be a flap to liven things up a bit. If they are attracting too much attention they can pull back.

So the lesson here is that we are dealing with an intelligent, dynamic phenomena that responds, with impunity, to our investigations. They are in control of what we believe...so don't make the mistake of thinking these beings will passively submit to our investigations - and never trust them. They are one step ahead of the game all the time.