UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record

[nismaratwork]

Actually, Mug, if you entirely ignore the sightings outside of the building, this hypothesis gets a little bit better. It would make sense for the military/government to have a way to remotely disable a nuclear missile silo in the event that it were overrun and the operating crew were taken hostage.

In that case, it would simply be a switch unknown to the operators (for security reasons) which could be remotely triggered. Of course, there would be no reason at all to involve an aircraft/balloon/disc to accomplish this; so that part of the "report" is still superfluous.

I still think, however, that the primary operating crew would be informed of the test if that were the case. Simulating intermittent malfunctions would surely demoralize the operators there ("first my Walkman breaks, now the integrated nuclear missile launch system breaks... what next?").

It's very hard to imagine that a missile launch control site could be overrun, and if it were you'd need to extract the relevant codes from personal. The most efficient means of stopping such a scenario is just to blow the silo to hell in that event, introduce an incapacitant into the air supply, rely on the loyalty and training of the personnel, and at the most you could shoot down a ballistic missile when you KNOW where it's being launched. Once the silo doors open, a cruise missile or F-** could blast the missile with no fear of a nuclear detonation.

The only feasible reason to shut down the launch capability of a control center is offensive in nature, or as a means to delay a hostile launch.

 

[FlexGunship]

The only feasible reason to shut down the launch capability of a control center is offensive in nature, or as a means to delay a hostile launch.

Heh, I didn't say it was likely... only more likely. You have a good point, of course. I would, again, emphasize the very low probability of there existing a device which could "universally" deactivate the launch electronics of a nuclear missile. As evidence I point to the "universal remote control."

Ever try to set one of those up? "If you have Sony, point the remote at the TV and press Fn + 5, and channel-up... if you have Panasonic, point the remote at the sun and press Ctrl + Alt while cycling through volume settings."

 

[nismaratwork]

Heh, I didn't say it was likely... only more likely. You have a good point, of course. I would, again, emphasize the very low probability of there existing a device which could "universally" deactivate the launch electronics of a nuclear missile. As evidence I point to the "universal remote control."

Ever try to set one of those up? "If you have Sony, point the remote at the TV and press Fn + 5, and channel-up... if you have Panasonic, point the remote at the sun and press Ctrl + Alt while cycling through volume settings."

I honestly don't know enough about nuclear weapons' launch systems to have a clue, and I assume anyone who does isn't at liberty to speak of it. I suppose you could be right, but it may be there's a safeguard of some kind that be triggered in a fairly universal sense, given the common genesis of the designs. It's also possible that the previous sentence is laughable, but I AM pretty sure that we'll never know!

 

[FlexGunship]

I suppose you could be right, but it may be there's a safeguard of some kind that be triggered in a fairly universal sense, given the common genesis of the designs.

When i was in the military/aerospace industry (for a short time) there weren't even common mechanisms for shutting down cockpit power in a fighter. The mechanism for disengaging the HUD (specifically) was non-trivially different for both fighters I worked on.

We should also keep in mind that this wasn't some sort of loss of power, the missiles actually were taken out of ready status. In the industry I work in now, we have many ways of forcing a machine into a safe condition. I can point to a single wire (one of many) that, if cut or removed, would bring the machine safely to a halt and stay there. The power is up and everything is running, the machine is simply in a "stop in safe" mode.

There's more than one wire, too, I should emphasize.

 

[alt]

There's a stark contrast between calling a hallucinating person "stupid" and describing the human race as "silly meat heads." The condition of hallucination has been shown to affect all individuals regardless of IQ or knowledge; so it is certainly not limited to "stoopid" people. The condition of poor observation is also a conditional affecting all humans, regardless of IQ.

If you literally cannot tell the difference between a broad statement about the human race as a whole and an insult directed at those who experience a hallucination, then I sincerely don't know how you can take part in this conversation. I'll leave the discussion there for the benefit of the thread as a whole.

I will continue more relevant discussion in a separate post.

So now, you're trying to make a case that I called ALL hallucinating people stoopid. How trite are you going to get here, in order to extricate yourself from your own creation? In the same post, I said in response to a comment of yours ..

Mind you, as an aside, some of the greatest ideas and the greatest insights have come to the greatest of men (science included) in states of hallucination - hynagogia I think they call it.

..hardly expressing a belief that ALL hallucinating people are stoopid.

And once again, you express your view that in general, the human race are "silly meatheads". Of course, you include yourself in this description too, I take it ?

 

[FlexGunship]

And once again, you express your view that in general, the human race are "silly meatheads". Of course, you include yourself in this description too, I take it ?

Absolutely. I had an entire thread dedicated to the times I thought I saw something inexplicable and forced myself to discount my observations.

Let me bring this back to the most relevant part of the discussion. Our brains are marvels of evolution no matter what biological criteria you use to judge them, however, they fall short in almost every observational aspect.

Firstly, we have a limited angle of view:
[PLAIN]http://vision.arc.nasa.gov/personnel/al/papers/64vision/17_files/image026.jpg

Within that limited angle of view, we have blind spots:
[PLAIN]http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/b/images/blindspot.jpg

After accounting for blind spots, what we can see is only the tiniest part of the EM spectrum:
[URL]http://www.nivitech.com/EM-spectrum.jpg[/URL]

Even when we can see something, we can't draw a straight line with our minds:

Even if we could draw a stright line, we wouldn't be able to tell what color we're looking at:

(Those are the same color, btw)
http://www.optics4kids.com/illusions/images/colorillusion.gif

And then, when we're all done gathering garbage information, our brain mashes it together with all kinds of other stuff we've got stored there:
EDIT: IMAGE DELETED BY AUTHOR

Even if you ignore all of the things we CAN'T see, sometimes we see things images and dots that AREN'T EVEN THERE!
[PLAIN]http://www.brother.co.uk/images/database/defaultshare/all/Brother_Magic_Eye_6.jpg
[URL]http://savasplace.com/content/files/Image/ultimate_optical_illusion.gif[/URL]

For these reasons, we have invented science. We have developed a tool and a process which, all things being equal, is most likely to yield correct results and build a true picture of reality. We've gotten this far as a species because we actively disregard what our senses tell us (i.e. light moves instantaneously, some objects are solid) and ignore intuition.

So, until science has something to say about the UFO phenomenon, I will continue to hold human observation as the guilty party in these sightings.

 

[alt]

I suggest you divert your discussion back to the topic of the thread lest the thread be locked. Some of us are still trying to hold meaningful discourse.

OK. I don't think that all observations and reports of UFO's are the product of silly meatheads as you claim.

As I personally don't believe in ET's (although I can't outrightly exclude the possibility), when thinking about what some (such as this thread subject) might be attributed to, I can only deduce human ingenuity. And that leads to me to consider the likelihood of advanced military technology. I of course can't say much more than this.

But given the propensity that humans have for conquest, I think it quite likely that this is the case.

Unless someone has proof however, we can only speculate. No proof or disproof of anything has yet resulted from this thread. Therefore, as always, UFO threads such as this are going to be speculative, and polarized toward each contributors beliefs.

PS - you might consider amending / deleting your visual aids a few posts back, as they have blown out my (and presumably others) screen size out an impractical width.

Edit - 1st line corrected

 

[FlexGunship]

And that leads to me to consider the likelihood of advanced military technology. I of course can't say much more than this.

And I don't think you need advanced military technology to explain it. In my opinion, leaping to this conclusion is simply "wishful thinking." I wish it were true, too... I'd like the idea of that security, and I'd like the idea that such technology exists.

PS - you might consider amending / deleting your visual aids a few posts back, as they have blown out my (and presumably others) screen size out an impractical width.

Consider it amended. Thanks.

 

[alt]

And I don't think you need advanced military technology to explain it. In my opinion, leaping to this conclusion is simply "wishful thinking." I wish it were true, too... I'd like the idea of that security, and I'd like the idea that such technology exists.

I have no great need or desire to wish for anything in this regard, therefore, I can confidently say that it's not 'wishful thinking' on my part.

 

[FlexGunship]

I have no great need or desire to wish for anything in this regard, therefore, I can confidently say that it's not 'wishful thinking' on my part.

Perhaps "wishful" is not the correct adjective here. The type of thinking I'm trying to describe is really "biased" thinking. Our brains are trained to suspect complexity where misunderstanding is occurring; sometimes that complexity is demonstrated as an "easy to grasp" idea.

"Advanced military technology" is like a blanket you can throw over many kinds of cognitive fires. The phrase is a simple way to express complex ideas (something our brains loooove). We use the phrase to explain things we can't explain under the guise of simplistic representative-complexity.

EDIT: Although this type of thinking doesn't necessarily yield incorrect thinking (calling a collection of cyclic wind patterns a "hurricane," for example, allows us to discuss many intermingled complex weather phenomena), it's wrong to use it without having at least set a base line for that idea.

I think I would feel better if someone were to try to define "advanced military technology" for me. At least then there could be rational discourse about which sighting MIGHT be attributed to it. "What properties could this technology have and by which mechanism could it have these properties?"

 

[jreelawg]

I think I would feel better if someone were to try to define "advanced military technology" for me. At least then there could be rational discourse about which sighting MIGHT be attributed to it. "What properties could this technology have and by which mechanism could it have these properties?"

If we knew the answers to those questions, and were on PF telling the world, I'm sure the military, or whoever the pilots are, they wouldn't appreciate it. And this raises a point which kind of ruins the fun for me. If the phenomena is related to man made craft, then there are probably underlying secrets which are of extreme sensitivity. If this technology is secret, maybe there is a good reason, and maybe it is in the best interest to keep it this way. And as long as countries like North Korea and Iran are around, technological secrets of a certain natures ought to be locked up and the key thrown away.

 

[FlexGunship]

If we knew the answer to those questions, and were on PF telling the world, I'm sure the military wouldn't appreciate it. And this raises a point which kind of ruins the fun for me. If the phenomena is related to man made craft, then there are probably underlying secrets which are of extreme sensitivity. If this technology is secret, maybe there is a good reason, and maybe it is in the best interest to keep it this way. And as long as countries like North Korea and Iran are around, technological secrets of a certain natures ought to be locked up and the key thrown away.

That's really not a reasonable reaction though. To be honest, it actually sounds as if you're oversimplifying the technical achievement you're trying to champion.

If we were to say: "the USAF has a jet that is entirely invisible due to metamaterials in the fuselage" that would be a null statement even if it were 100% true. There's nothing to be gained from this statement. The engineering hours and the physical knowledge that would go into that type of development entirely precludes the viability of a reaction from an opposing air force just because of the disclosure of that information.

Think about it because there really is no precedent.

If the USAF came out with the statement: "Dear North Korea, we have a jet that is invisible, can make 90 degree turns instantaneously, is remotely operated, runs indefinitely, and can leave the atmosphere and basically drop directly down on your nation," what possibly could be the result other than the demoralization of an opposing nation?

What is far more likely is what is happening with the F-22. Truncation of fact. Not disinformation, just truncation. "The F-22 can reach mach 2.7." Well, obviously that's not it's actual top speed! They don't disclose that! "The F-22 is practically invisible to radar." I bet it is! It might even be invisible to radar for all practical purposes.

"Secret" technology is the clever application of existing technology. I don't know of a single instance where truly new technology has been released in a military vehicle first. I'd be interested if we could establish a precedent.

 

[jreelawg]

In a way, I suspect that the above is the case, but I feel uncomfortable assuming the implied world view. In essence, it is more fun to wonder if we are being visiting by aliens, what they might be like, what they might want etc, than it is to wonder if there is a some government conspiracy. I imagine wishful thinking may plays a role in the fact that so many people support the ET hypothesis. Another common error people make, is the assumption that because they were in the military, or were an astronaut, or worked at a nuclear weapons storage facility, that they would be privy to any kind of secret except that which their job requires.

There does seam to be at least one interesting painting of what looks like a flying saucer from the 1700's, but most ancient astronaut stuff is beyond ridiculous. And there are some pre 19'th century UFO reports, but I have seen nothing convincing.

 

[jreelawg]

That's really not a reasonable reaction though. To be honest, it actually sounds as if you're oversimplifying the technical achievement you're trying to champion.

If we were to say: "the USAF has a jet that is entirely invisible due to metamaterials in the fuselage" that would be a null statement even if it were 100% true. There's nothing to be gained from this statement. The engineering hours and the physical knowledge that would go into that type of development entirely precludes the viability of a reaction from an opposing air force just because of the disclosure of that information.

Think about it because there really is no precedent.

If the USAF came out with the statement: "Dear North Korea, we have a jet that is invisible, can make 90 degree turns instantaneously, is remotely operated, runs indefinitely, and can leave the atmosphere and basically drop directly down on your nation," what possibly could be the result other than the demoralization of an opposing nation?

What is far more likely is what is happening with the F-22. Truncation of fact. Not disinformation, just truncation. "The F-22 can reach mach 2.7." Well, obviously that's not it's actual top speed! They don't disclose that! "The F-22 is practically invisible to radar." I bet it is! It might even be invisible to radar for all practical purposes.

"Secret" technology is the clever application of existing technology. I don't know of a single instance where truly new technology has been released in a military vehicle first. I'd be interested if we could establish a precedent.

The problem with all of that, is that if we did have a craft which could do what UFO's are reported to do, then people would want to know how it is possible. How would a physics professor act when a student asked him how the declassified craft is able to seam to defy the laws of physics. It would imply secret physics. ET craft would imply unknown physics. I would prefer the hypothesis that it's actually some kind of hoax, by product of known technology, or natural phenomena.

 

[Freeman Dyson]

"I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than of the unknown rational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence."

-Feynman.

And I take that stance until real evidence shows otherwise. We even have quack astronauts who believe in X Files type ****. You can cherry pick them from any field.

 

[FlexGunship]

"I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than of the unknown rational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence."

-Feynman.

And I take that stance until real evidence shows otherwise. We even have quack astronauts who believe in X Files type ****. You can cherry pick them from any field.

Seems like a pretty safe stance. It's held up so far.

 

[lisab]

"I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than of the unknown rational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence."

-Feynman.

And I take that stance until real evidence shows otherwise. We even have quack astronauts who believe in X Files type ****. You can cherry pick them from any field.

Feynman rocks.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

There's nothing to this report. The only reason anyone is giving it any weight is because the word "nuclear" is involved.

There was a documented systems failure in conjuction with reported phenomena at a secure facility. That makes it more interesting than a sighting at a Dairy Queen. You are simply ignoring the facts. Your position is pedestrian and indefensible.

Red herring.

Alright, this is a signficant point. You prove to me what the odds of an encounter with ET or an ET craft really are. And I want a quantitative argument. Skeptics like to toss around opinions as facts, but not here. If you are going to use "more likely than" references, you have to provide evidence or a mathematical argument.

Or do you agree that we have no idea what the odds may be?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

As for eyewitness testimony, true or false: Those who give virtually no weight to eyewitness testimomy agree that this should be removed as a form or evidence in courts of law.

If we can give no logical weight to this evidence in matters relating to UFOs, then clearly it cannot be justified when a person's life or freedom is at stake. And remember that we are talking about weight in a logical sense, not as scientific evidence.

 

[jreelawg]

Towards a scientific and societal agenda on extra-terrestrial life

Starts: 9.00am on 04 October 2010"Four panel debates include

Calling ET, or not even answering the phone?

Societal questions raised by the detection of extra-terrestrial life

What could studies of extra-terrestrial life tell us about the future of humanity?

Extra-terrestrial life and arising political issues for the UN agenda"

http://royalsociety.org/extra-terrestrial-life/

Just thought this is relevant, I wish I could go and watch.

 

[nismaratwork]

As for eyewitness testimony, true or false: Those who give virtually no weight to eyewitness testimomy agree that this should be removed as a form or evidence in courts of law.

If we can give no logical weight to this evidence in matters relating to UFOs, then clearly it cannot be justified when a person's life or freedom is at stake. And remember that we are talking about weight in a logical sense, not as scientific evidence.

Eyewitness testimony is more and more marginalized as it is, and often requires the corroboration of forensic evidence. That said, we're pattern machines, and while eyewitnesses are generally imprecise and sometimes downright wrong... put a bunch of them together in a mundane situation and you do get a narrative.

It isn't a challenge to the brain to recognize a man holding a gun to someone's head and pulling the trigger, but interpreting what a light in the sky may be... well... that's a whole different animal. An eyewitness is also challenged in a concrete manner; line-ups with random elements, a need for their own testimony to match an established time-line and forensic evidence.

In short, eyewitnesses don't need to be eliminated because interpreting the actions of regular terrestrial objects and people is far easier than inkblots, lights, or strange noises. A single eyewitness is never enough to convict in the absence of ANY other evidence... think about it... if I say that I saw Bob murder Alice, even if Alice disappears never to be seen again, it's a piss-poor case without any forensic evidence, including Alice's body.

I would compare eyewitness UFO testimony to a claim of witnessing a murder without knowing who the killer or victim is, and without anyone missing. It's JUST the witness... and that's not a conviction in court.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Eyewitness testimony is more and more marginalized as it is, and often requires the corroboration of forensic evidence.

Often but not always. And the same can be said for RADAR data corroborating eyewitness testimony.

That said, we're pattern machines, and while eyewitnesses are generally imprecise and sometimes downright wrong... put a bunch of them together in a mundane situation and you do get a narrative.

Yes, one that is accepted in a court of law. It seems to me that long ago, reasonable people agreed that eyewitness testimony can be given logical credibility, depending the circumstances. As in a court of law, one has to consider the witness and the circumstances to help weight the evidence properly.

It isn't a challenge to the brain to recognize a man holding a gun to someone's head and pulling the trigger, but interpreting what a light in the sky may be... well... that's a whole different animal.

You are assuming that interpretation by the witness is required. In fact, what we want to know what they observed, not what they think it was., e.g. If you saw a light, say it was a light. If you saw a structured craft hovering over your house, then say so. So that becomes a strawman argument.

An eyewitness is also challenged in a concrete manner; line-ups with random elements, a need for their own testimony to match an established time-line and forensic evidence.

The same can be said for many UFO events. Triangulation through multiple eyewitness accounts to determine position, the timeline of reports and the observed details from independent witnesses, RADAR activity that can be related to observations, UFO reports can also be broken down into its essential elements, and analyzed for consistency.

In short, eyewitnesses don't need to be eliminated because interpreting the actions of regular terrestrial objects and people is far easier than inkblots, lights, or strange noises. A single eyewitness is never enough to convict in the absence of ANY other evidence... think about it... if I say that I saw Bob murder Alice, even if Alice disappears never to be seen again, it's a piss-poor case without any forensic evidence, including Alice's body.

Again, you are making many false assumptions. People often report very specific information about what they saw. It is simply not true that the core of this depends on fuzzy lights in the sky. Were that the case, far fewer people would be invoking the name of ET. You have to first listen to what people are actually saying before making assumption. You are also assuming that we have one witness when we may have many. In fact we began with a report involving several high-ranking military personnell, in the Iran report linked. The Rendlesham case probably invovled a dozen military people.

And you don't always need a body. But none of this speaks to the essential point that long ago, reasonable people decided that eyewitness testimony can carry significant logical weight, even in matters of life and death. The witnesses and circumstances have to be evaluated and weighted according to some logical standard, but we do as a society recognize the value of eyewitness testimomy.

I would compare eyewitness UFO testimony to a claim of witnessing a murder without knowing who the killer or victim is, and without anyone missing. It's JUST the witness... and that's not a conviction in court.

That is the wrong analogy. It is more akin to reporting a murder to the police. "I saw one gang member shoot and kill another gang member in front of my house. Some guys grabbed the body and eveyone took off". Are you saying the police wouldn't respond?

Remember, this is not about getting a conviction. No one is claiming proof of anything here.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is the scientific position and one that I happen to agree with, when it comes to scientific evidence. But what is the next bar down? In the skeptics, what I see is all or nothing. There is no evidence short of proof that would compel the skeptic to even consider the possibility that we've been visited. In that case, the skeptic really has nothing to do here in regard s to ET. We all agree that we have no scientific evidence for visiting ETs. Why waste our time making your point over and over again?

If that is not your position, then what, short of virtual proof, would you consider evidence for ET, in a purely logical sense?

If we cannot assign the odds of an ET visitation, then what justifies such a closed-door attitude in lieu of the thousands of people who will swear that they've seen structured crafts that seem to to be inexplicable? Why the personal bias?

I submit that to be closed-minded about this subject a very anti-scientific attitude. It flies in the face of the spirit of discovery. It shuts the door on investigating claims that might lead to actual scientific evidence. How can anyone hope to find the license plate from ETs car if no one looks for it?

 

[nismaratwork]

WHen I say "interpretation" I don't mean the witness giving their personal spin, I mean interpretation at the neurological level. Specificity can be invented out of whole cloth, but is more likely to be done when there are significant gaps in what people see.

As for the "cops wouldn't respond"... oh they'd arrest you, but you can be arrested for almost anything. Eyewitness testimony by definition occurs in a court, hence "testimony". Forget a conviction, you don't have a CASE if that's the only evidence you have... sad as it may seem. After all, what if you're interested in somehow disrupting that gang?

Now, RADAR evidence isn't eyewitness evidence, and I don't know of any RADAR records which can match the accuracy of fingerprinting or DNA in regards to an "ET"... just a UFO which is different. So, what does it take to prove an ET?... an ET, really good video of one that is analyzed, or... yeah, that's pretty much it. Even if you have a UFO that seems to be beyond human tech and it's proven to be a craft of somekind... it could still be terrestrial in origin.

What does it take to prove that gorillas exist? Answer: a gorilla. I bring that up, because the history of gorilla discovery is one of people not grasping what they saw, and long doubt. It was finally confirmed when... gorillas were produced.

 

[FlexGunship]

That is the wrong analogy. It is more akin to reporting a murder to the police. "I saw one gang member shoot and kill another gang member in front of my house. Some guys grabbed the body and eveyone took off". Are you saying the police wouldn't respond?

Remember, this is not about getting a conviction. No one is claiming proof of anything here.

That is an even more wrong analogy. Here you are dealing with the assembly of well formed concepts; concepts with little or no ambiguity (even if they are constructed in an ambiguous way).

We understand guns, we understand people, we understand murder. These ideas are already in our heads; we deal with them on a daily basis in some form. The situation might be new, but it is built out of blocks that are very familiar. They are so familiar, in fact, that we accept generic words in place of the item: "gun" is enough to for each of us to conjure up the image of a gun of some sort (pistol, rifle, RPG). Even if we all pull up different images in our head, the narrative is not significantly compromised.

Remember, we are taking an image (perhaps foggy) that is stored in our memory, and trying to recreate it in someone else's mind as accurately as possible.

However, when someone tries to report something [that we can all agree] defies their explanation, there are some significant compromises that must be made for a narrative to even exist. Firstly, we have Hollywood and various forms of media floods out minds with thousands of different types of fictional alien craft. When a narrative is told, these are what provide the stand in. Secondly, there is a lack of formal language to lean on; where ambiguities exist, they must remain. Thirdly, we are dealing with a hugely incomplete picture! when some one says they saw two lights join together, that might not have happened at all. They might have simply lined up along the line-of-sight of the observer. Lights in a triangle shape? Maybe not. Noises? Motions? Lack of depth perception in the sky?

You have to agree, that any UFO report (at best) is mostly noise and very little signal when it comes through a human being. Remember that huge list of links I provided? Even if one of them was a real ET craft, how do we explain away all the other contradicting cases? People are bad observers; it's the simplest explanation.

When seeking to explain something mysterious in the sky, start there. You would probably have to go no further.

Extraordinary claims don't only require extraordinary evidence... they require evidence on par with the claim being made. ET visitation would require some of the most extraordinary evidence ever conceived before it was seriously considered.

Remember, there exists, on Earth, right now, at this moment, the means to fool every individual on the planet about the existence and presence of alien life.

What does it take to prove that gorillas exist? Answer: a gorilla. I bring that up, because the history of gorilla discovery is one of people not grasping what they saw, and long doubt. It was finally confirmed when... gorillas were produced.

I like this. I had to go read about gorillas on Wikipedia. Interesting.

 

[nismaratwork]

That is an even more wrong analogy. Here you are dealing with the assembly of well formed concepts; concepts with little or no ambiguity (even if they are constructed in an ambiguous way).

We understand guns, we understand people, we understand murder. These ideas are already in our heads; we deal with them on a daily basis in some form. The situation might be new, but it is built out of blocks that are very familiar. They are so familiar, in fact, that we accept generic words in place of the item: "gun" is enough to for each of us to conjure up the image of a gun of some sort (pistol, rifle, RPG). Even if we all pull up different images in our head, the narrative is not significantly compromised.

Remember, we are taking an image (perhaps foggy) that is stored in our memory, and trying to recreate it in someone else's mind as accurately as possible.

However, when someone tries to report something [that we can all agree] defies their explanation, there are some significant compromises that must be made for a narrative to even exist. Firstly, we have Hollywood and various forms of media floods out minds with thousands of different types of fictional alien craft. When a narrative is told, these are what provide the stand in. Secondly, there is a lack of formal language to lean on; where ambiguities exist, they must remain. Thirdly, we are dealing with a hugely incomplete picture! when some one says they saw two lights join together, that might not have happened at all. They might have simply lined up along the line-of-sight of the observer. Lights in a triangle shape? Maybe not. Noises? Motions? Lack of depth perception in the sky?

You have to agree, that any UFO report (at best) is mostly noise and very little signal when it comes through a human being. Remember that huge list of links I provided? Even if one of them was a real ET craft, how do we explain away all the other contradicting cases? People are bad observers; it's the simplest explanation.

When seeking to explain something mysterious in the sky, start there. You would probably have to go no further.

Extraordinary claims don't only require extraordinary evidence... they require evidence on par with the claim being made. ET visitation would require some of the most extraordinary evidence ever conceived before it was seriously considered.

Remember, there exists, on Earth, right now, at this moment, the means to fool every individual on the planet about the existence and presence of alien life.
I like this. I had to go read about gorillas on Wikipedia. Interesting.

You make some exceptional points here Flex, and you make a case for why all or nearly all UFO sighting are of the mundane, the weather , the very occasional experimental aircraft as a percent of a percent. There is one statement that I disagree with "T visitation would require some of the most extraordinary evidence ever conceived before it was seriously considered." I you produced an ET, run some medical tests and confirm with a number of institutions and governments to make sure it isn't an elaborate hoax, I'd believe it. You'd need to hook a cold-fusion plant up and power a city block before I'd believe that. I can conceive of harder concepts to prove than ETs, even though I don't think we've ever been... um... "visited".

Edit: Of course, there is that incredibly outside possibility that there really are gorillas, speaking metaphorically. A skeptic has to admit the possibility, even if its assigned a near-zero probability.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

WHen I say "interpretation" I don't mean the witness giving their personal spin, I mean interpretation at the neurological level. Specificity can be invented out of whole cloth, but is more likely to be done when there are significant gaps in what people see.

You are assuming that there is a lot of room for interpretation. I saw an ~ 100 ft diameter craft hovering 10 feet about my house, is pretty hard to argue as a mistake. And you find reports like these, for example, in the Belgium wave, where two police officers reported an extended observation of a large craft hovering over a church at close range. Your objection is valid within its domain, but it doesn't apply in all cases.

As for the "cops wouldn't respond"... oh they'd arrest you, but you can be arrested for almost anything. Eyewitness testimony by definition occurs in a court, hence "testimony". Forget a conviction, you don't have a CASE if that's the only evidence you have... sad as it may seem. After all, what if you're interested in somehow disrupting that gang?

But eyewitness testimony is certainly evidence enough to start an investigation. If no supporing evidence is found, the case goes dormant, it isn't closed.

Now, RADAR evidence isn't eyewitness evidence, and I don't know of any RADAR records which can match the accuracy of fingerprinting or DNA in regards to an "ET"... just a UFO which is different. So, what does it take to prove an ET?...[

Again you are arguing for proof, not evidence. This is a point that I have probably made hundreds of times over the years: They are not the same thing.

..an ET, really good video of one that is analyzed, or... yeah, that's pretty much it. Even if you have a UFO that seems to be beyond human tech and it's proven to be a craft of somekind... it could still be terrestrial in origin.

We have tons of videos. They count for nothing.

What does it take to prove that gorillas exist? Answer: a gorilla. I bring that up, because the history of gorilla discovery is one of people not grasping what they saw, and long doubt. It was finally confirmed when... gorillas were produced.

Again with the proof. No one is talking about proof here. The question is, what justifies an interest in claims of gorillas. What happened was that someone made the effort to find and catch one, based on the claims.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Flex, you are still missing my point. The conclusion that people are seeing ET is not what I'm going for here. However, there is a great deal of evidence that people are occasionally observing seemingly inexplicable phenomena. We have testimony and evidence to this effect that wouldn't even be questioned were it not for the implications of these reports. And the very reason we don't accept these reports at face value is that we have no idea how to explain them. Its often isn't the claim that raises eyebrows, it's the implications of the claim. If the witnesses really saw what they said they saw, then we have no explanation.

I have spent over twenty years considering this problem. Like many people, I jumped into this subject expecting it to be based on nonsense. I never expected to find what I found. In fact, until the NSA opened its files, I thought many allegedly official reports must simply be faked documents. But in many cases the documents were real. The more time I spent learning about the facts, the harder it became to explain it all away while maintaining any semblance of intellectual honesty There exists a fair amount of non-scientific evidence that leaves one scratching their head. Sure, we can always guess at ways to explain all away, but when these guesses require that we ignore everything but the desired conclusions, it becomes nonsensical. It becomes a leap of faith to dismiss it all.

Given that we have no way to extrapolate knowledge such that we can predict what technologies may be possible, for a race of beings a thousand, or a million, or a billion years more advanced than us, and given that even our understanding of physics may allow for ways to beat Einstein's speed limit, and given that life may indeed be common in the Universe, we have no way to set any limits here. If we are to be honest, we have to consider that a visitation might be possible. We can't rule out the possibility that people do occassionally encounter something not of this earth. We certainly have plenty of stories that imply as much, and they go back thousands of years. Some of these stories are in part the basis for some religions. How profound is that??

The biggest lesson that I've learned is that most skeptics will spend far more time arguing about this, than learning about it. Have you even looked at the UFO Napster?

What makes this subject so difficult to broach are the implications. If even one case really was an encounter with ETs, the implications are so deeply profound that, as a matter of self-preservation, we keep the very notion at arm's length. It is just too much to imagine. And that is exactly why I believe this subject should not be ignored. It is one of the most profoundly interesting questions ever asked: Have we ever been visited? It is the corollary to the question: Are we alone?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It is not logically consistent to accept eyewitness testimony is cases of life and death, or when someone's freedom is at stake, but not in cases that we don't know how to explain, simply because we can't explain them. That is cherry picking. So if one gives no crediblity to eyewitness testimony, then by defintion one rejects the US system of justice, and we should open the prison doors for anyone whose conviction was dependent on eyewitness testimony.

All in favor?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The authors of this published paper make many of the same aguments that I do.

INFLATION-THEORY IMPLICATIONS FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL VISITATION
J. Deardorff, B. Haisch, B. Maccabee and H.E. Puthoff
Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol 58, pp. 43-50, 2005.
http://www.ufoskeptic.org/JBIS.pdf

Consider also, the COMETA Report

COMETA Report

In 1999 an important document was published in France entitled, UFOs and Defense: What must we be prepared for? ("Les Ovni Et La Defense: A quoi doit-on se préparer?"). This ninety-page report is the result of an in-depth study of UFOs, covering many aspects of the subject, especially questions of national defense. The study was carried out over several years by an independent group of former "auditors" at the Institute of Advanced Studies for National Defense, or IHEDN, and by qualified experts from various fields. Before its public release, it has been sent to French President Jacques Chirac and to Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. The report is prefaced by General Bernard Norlain of the Air Force, former Director of IHEDN, and it begins with a preamble by André Lebeau, former President of the National Center for Space Studies (Centre National D’études Spatiales), or CNES, the French equivalent of NASA. The group itself, collective author of the report, is an association of experts, many of whom are or have been auditors of IHEDN, and it is presided over by General Denis Letty of the Air Force, former auditor (FA) of IHEDN.

http://www.ufoevidence.org/newsite/files/COMETA_part1.pdf
http://www.ufoevidence.org/newsite/files/COMETA_part2.pdf
http://www.ufoevidence.org/topics/cometa.htm

This is a link to the Malmstrom event page at CUFON [I promised to get back to this wrt the technical report]
http://www.cufon.org/cufon/malmstrom/malm1.htm

They have a link to the Boeing document but the link is no longer good. I may still have a copy of the technical report backed up somewhere, so I will check. But the essential point is that these were isolated systems. Simultaneous failures of multiple systems should not be possible. I believe some of the missile systems involved were miles away from each other. So from a technical pov, it was a perplexing failure. To the best of my memory, the report considers only what would be required to trigger one failure like those observed. I don't think any attempt was made to explain the multiple failures. That security guards were calling about UFOs at the same time that a seemingly impossible failure was occurring, makes the case interesting. Note that I haven't reviewed this case in a long time, so I have to be careful about the details, but I know that I found it to be a striking case. This does not mean that I think it was ET. It means that I found it intriguing.

This speaks to the more general point that, even if there are no legitimate cases of ET encounters, there are still some very perplexing cases. This again gets back to justification for an interest in the subject of UFOs. Whatever people are seeing, I am at a loss to explain it all. And simply deferring to explanations like "it's ball lightning" is not an explanation. We don't understand ball lightning: We don't know what it is, we don't know the limits of its behavior or its characteristics, and we don't know if there is one form of ball lightning, or ten, or if there are ten other phenomena that just look like ball lightining. This is why I prefer to avoid the everpresent implication of ET in these discussions. We don't need to discuss that possibility in order to discuss a case. And we don't need to draw conclusions in the absence of definitive evidence either way. We can just examine the evidence for what it is and consider what possible explanations may exist, but without bias. This means that we don't throw out evidence just because it might be suggestive of an ET presence. Nor do we leap to unjustified conclusions that require extraordinary evidence.