theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Charming sentiments, but not likely to change the mind of any UFO enthusiast. Have either of you ever actually tried these maxims on anyone not already inclined to accept them?
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Charming sentiments, but not likely to change the mind of any UFO enthusiast. Have either of you ever actually tried these maxims on anyone not already inclined to accept them?
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
I was vaguely hovering around Carl Sagan, but I can believe it was Adams.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
Yes, actually.
shemp
a flimsy character...perfidious and despised
'Earth has a barrier around it stopping aliens from reaching us' – say aliens
Well, what better source can we have than the aliens themselves? And it's in the Daily Star, so it must be true!
I'm convinced!
Well, what better source can we have than the aliens themselves? And it's in the Daily Star, so it must be true!
I'm convinced!
gabeygoat
Master Poster
for sure. I like to nerd out on science, and bring ups all the neat things and sometimes it bores them, but sometimes they too, find it fascinating, and it usually changes the subject.
Checkmite
Skepticifimisticalationist
Have you ever heard of the Secret Space Program? I just found out about it for the first time about two years ago, and I thought I'd had a pretty good handle on the UFO/conspiracy cult landscape. There's some wild stuff out there.
The garden isn't beautiful, but fairies won't make it any better.
Roger Ramjets
Philosopher
Definition of mundane
1. common; ordinary; banal; unimaginative.
2. of or relating to this world or earth as contrasted with heaven; worldly; earthly:
3. of or relating to the world, universe, or earth.
People are seeing 'UFOs' all the time, and the causes are indeed 'ordinary' and related to the physical word, not the imaginary world UFO nuts yearn to be a part of.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
I disagree. The garden that we humans find ourselves in is vast and awe-inspiring.
The garden is an arbitrary collection of stuff, and the gardener has forced us to see it as beautiful by performing invasive brain surgery.
Of course, neither extraterrestrials nor magic would actually fix that; neither of those things are inherently compelling outside of what the gardener wants us to like. And in this case we don't even like aliens, we just like the sense of discovering and exploring the new, because the gardener wants us to be excited for his next lazy creation.
But before I have the metaphor run away from me, I just don't find "reality is good enough" a compelling or even useful argument in this case.
Reality requires the effort of your attention to be awe-inspiring.
Short of that there are the entertainments of novelty, the preternatural, and fantasy.
But far from me to take all the spice off the table. Give me some MSG of fantastic tales, sprites in crystals, space-aliens living in our midst, and undying love. As long as I remember what's fiction and can retreat to reality when the fantasies are just too nauseating.
Short of that there are the entertainments of novelty, the preternatural, and fantasy.
But far from me to take all the spice off the table. Give me some MSG of fantastic tales, sprites in crystals, space-aliens living in our midst, and undying love. As long as I remember what's fiction and can retreat to reality when the fantasies are just too nauseating.
I have spent a few decades of my life watching and reading whatever I could to see if all the research and evidence could bring a result. A result that didn't require more investigation in the least.
I gave up on that about 20 years ago. They don't want definitive results. That doesn't pay the bills nor keep them on expert in the subject status.
Much as Criss Angel will always rely on his ability to choose what and where he pulls the "random" magic he does the ufo/uap crowd will also control the stage of thier great evidence and events.
I gave up on that about 20 years ago. They don't want definitive results. That doesn't pay the bills nor keep them on expert in the subject status.
Much as Criss Angel will always rely on his ability to choose what and where he pulls the "random" magic he does the ufo/uap crowd will also control the stage of thier great evidence and events.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Aliens aren't the McGuffin. The McGuffin is ongoing charges of concealment. All the people who are grifting off this depend on people always believing there's more out there to be "disclosed."
Axxman300
Philosopher
Yup, around 26 years ago I was asked to leave my local UFO discussion group because I was sucking all the fun out of the room by demanding evidence of any kind. Believers can't be bothered with facts. They live for the stories that feed their world-view. Before each meeting I would go to the library to access the internet, and print out the latest numbers from the National UFO Reporting Center to point out the trends, if any. The Center's raw data collection is a great place to get a feel for where and why people are seeing UFOs. Most UFO sightings are in urban areas that have multiple airports, and often a military base close by. After three years of reviewing data if became harder and harder to isolate any sightings that couldn't be explained by satellites, aircraft, flares, missile testing, and meteors/space junk.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
There was a neuroscientist named Biderman or Biederman (I don't recall which, or the first name) who studied the phenomenon of the payoff you get from feeling like you've discovered something that others didn't know or didn't want you to find out. He hypothesized that as an explanation for the UFO enthusiasm and similar behavior. People want to believe they've found out something the government didn't want them to know, and this made them happy.
In contrast, I've told you before what a pleasure it was to work with Joshua Warren, the ghost hunter. He had a legitimate fascination with what kinds of natural phenomena in photography could produce effects attributed to ghosts. Warren is a true believer, but he wasn't dismissive of anything I said to him and kept coming back to me for more skepticism. I wish more UFO people would be as excited to spot a spent rocket booster and accept it for what it is.
Every person I knew that seen something and knew it was a ufo or whatever had the same problem a dog that chases cars has.
The dog catches the car and what can he do with it? Certainly can't drive it.
My friends knew they seen a ________. OK.
But is there anything physical? Any photos that clearly display what he says?
Anything except a cool story?
I lived on an US air force base four years. We occasionally seen stuff we couldn't explain and were told to not worry about it if we were not part of it. During most of these times most of the junior staff on the flightline was off duty and nobody in thier squadron serviced whatever may have arrived. But somebody did.
Stuff/wreckage was picked up off the firing range between us and another base, nobody talked about it. It was just taken away quietly.
And if you did see something you shouldn't have you certainly didn't take pictures and talk about it. That was risking the life of another potentially.
But now all these people trying to get information about area 51 or some lights in the sky would compromise the security of a nation for dubious rewards.
I have been out of uniform for 30 years and eventually I got to see the stuff getting retired that I wasn't allowed to mention. I hope my silence helped somehow.
The dog catches the car and what can he do with it? Certainly can't drive it.
My friends knew they seen a ________. OK.
But is there anything physical? Any photos that clearly display what he says?
Anything except a cool story?
I lived on an US air force base four years. We occasionally seen stuff we couldn't explain and were told to not worry about it if we were not part of it. During most of these times most of the junior staff on the flightline was off duty and nobody in thier squadron serviced whatever may have arrived. But somebody did.
Stuff/wreckage was picked up off the firing range between us and another base, nobody talked about it. It was just taken away quietly.
And if you did see something you shouldn't have you certainly didn't take pictures and talk about it. That was risking the life of another potentially.
But now all these people trying to get information about area 51 or some lights in the sky would compromise the security of a nation for dubious rewards.
I have been out of uniform for 30 years and eventually I got to see the stuff getting retired that I wasn't allowed to mention. I hope my silence helped somehow.
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Axxman300
Philosopher
True Story: Our little UFO Discussion Group met the first Wednesday of every month at a small metaphysical bookstore. For a while some Navy student from the Defense Language Institute sat in on the meetings. He was a believer. The last time he came he brought a fellow classmate, a guy who was skeptical of the whole thing, but open minded. At some point during the meeting a debate about USAF sensing technology broke out, and I made reference to E-Systems. I don't recall the subject, but the skeptical Navy guy asked me what E-Systems was, and I responded that if he didn't know already he would find out once he went to crypto-school (E-Systems, now owned by Raytheon, makes most of the cool black boxes, and sneaky technology for the ELINT world). This was the last meeting for both Navy guys, and the next meeting there was an attractive woman who claimed to be interested in UFOs, but didn't want to talk during the meeting, so she asked me and another guy to discuss what we knew over drinks at the pub across the street.
She never talked about UFOs, but was really interested in how I knew about E-Systems, and other black projects. Lucky for me, while I knew what E-Systems was, and what they did I had no functional (operational) knowledge about any of their gear. As for the black projects? Lockheed, McDonald Douglas, Northrop, and Raytheon techs and engineers love to talk about airplanes, and the space program. And a few love to show off. Since I ran a hobby shop at the time the dozens of airplane and spaceship models hanging from my ceiling was a great conversation starter. The trick is to shut up and listen. Over time I was able to piece together a few projects that had no details other than they existed (for a time).
We never saw the woman again. I learned that saying the wrong thing to the right person can make your life interesting.
And none of those techs, engineers, or any of the dozens of pilots I talked to in the hobby shop ever told me a UFO story. Go figure.
I was in the supply squadron and did the documents in various capacities over time. I knew a bit about if something needed parts or was under repair. But I had no reason beyond a passing interest at best as others would ask me to find a punch card or a particular document they needed to do thier jobs.
But still my real personal interests had little to do with anything military and outside of work I wasn't on base unless sleeping.
(Not a good thing in the eyes of team Green players higher up in the ranks, they liked dedicated career oriented kids a lot better. They were correct. )
Pilots on base barely talked to anyone outside of thier own about flying, training or whatever. Busybody types got moved to mission non-essential jobs within a few weeks of joining us.
The culture on base was fairly tight and narrow minded. But it got our planes to Iraq intact in 1991. We did our jobs.
But still my real personal interests had little to do with anything military and outside of work I wasn't on base unless sleeping.
(Not a good thing in the eyes of team Green players higher up in the ranks, they liked dedicated career oriented kids a lot better. They were correct. )
Pilots on base barely talked to anyone outside of thier own about flying, training or whatever. Busybody types got moved to mission non-essential jobs within a few weeks of joining us.
The culture on base was fairly tight and narrow minded. But it got our planes to Iraq intact in 1991. We did our jobs.
Hlafordlaes
Disorder of Kilopi
IMO this is the major premise of much of woo, that the discovery of new knowledge is a question of revealing that which is hidden, nothing to do with science. It's the other way of arriving at "truth"... using a method that is accessible to anyone regardless of training, a false comfort. Low barriers to entry, in science, are bad news.
shemp
a flimsy character...perfidious and despised
UFO hunters claim to be in possession of debris from alien space craft that is lighter than a petal
tl/dr: They don't.
What exactly is this "NASA-grade technology"? And if it's "90 percent unidentifiable," doesn't that just mean "duh, we don't know what it is"? No, to them it means "It must be from a UFO!"
WTF? Idiots! It has to contain known elements. I'm sure any competent chemical identification lab could tell you what it consists of.
tl/dr: They don't.
What exactly is this "NASA-grade technology"? And if it's "90 percent unidentifiable," doesn't that just mean "duh, we don't know what it is"? No, to them it means "It must be from a UFO!"
WTF? Idiots! It has to contain known elements. I'm sure any competent chemical identification lab could tell you what it consists of.