...snip...
Each case stands on its own merit. You can not pile each case upon each other since they represent different events and can not be grouped as observing the same type of thing. Your attempt to do so is not science at all but trying to make a mountain out of nothing.
What if Father Gill had reported seeing a flying dragon? Would you accept that as evidence for flying dragons or would you reject it as just a fanciful observation?
I think the skeptics in this forum have demonstrated the evidence for all these cases have their flaws and have suggested alternative explanations. Of course, you have simply rejected them with the usual hand waving.
Because we are not the ones saying it must have been a blimp. We are stating it could be a blimp and it is possible. You are the one stating these are alien spaceships, which means you need to provide evidence to indicate why you think this is so. If you are stating they are just unidentified, then we have to examine what is most likely - fairies, dragons, alien spaceships, blimp/aircraft? IMO, the blimp/aircraft is most likely until you can demonstrate it was something else.
We have seen the skeptics insist that in accepting Rramjets assertion, only the most narrowly defined form of 'evidence' is acceptable, using the Sagan quote as a shield. What I believe Rramjet is doing, and what I agree with, is his attempt to show that the repeatable body of evidence is showing exactly what he claims.
Skeptics have ignored or dismissed literally hundreds of thousands of UFO sightings, videos, photographs, physical traces, electromagnetic effects, radar echoes and physical damage to objects in their slavish devotion to the Sagan mantra. What is it about
hundreds of thousands of pieces of evidence that is
notextraordinary? Even if we discard 90% of those as errors or hoaxes, that still leaves 10,000 or so cases. Ten thousand cases (or more) of observations of alien technology is quite extraordinary! Some estimates put the number of sightings in the millions, as most go unreported. For you to accuse Rramjet of hand waving dismissal damages your argument substantially.
I think the accumulated body of evidence regarding UFO's can be classified as scientific. With hundreds of thousands of sightings on record, some of the data can be analyzed as to shape, size etc. How is that not scientific?
The steps of the scientific method are to:
Ask a Question
Do Background Research
Construct a Hypothesis
Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
Communicate Your Results
What is disconcerting about the skeptic attitude seems to be this intractable position that all observers or recorders of UFO/Alien incidents are wrong or mistaken. They have psych problems. They have a standing belief in UFO's...blah blah blah...it goes on and on. Any convenient flaw in personality or character and poof!- claim dismissed! It reminds me of those insurance companies who routinely deny medical benefits for legitimate claims.
An echo for the skeptics is 'arguments from incredulity and ignorance', usually coupled with the Sagan mantra. Perhaps in the 1950's most people were incredulous, and ignorant of the UFO phenomena, but the results of a 2002 poll say otherwise;
"A new national poll found that 72 percent of Americans believe the government is not telling the public everything it knows about UFO activity, and 68 percent think the government knows more about extraterrestrial life than it is letting on, the SCI FI Channel reported. The poll—sponsored by SCI FI as part of its promotion for Steven Spielberg's 20-hour SF miniseries Taken—also revealed that men more than women think such information should be shared with the public. RoperASW conducted the poll of 1,021 adults aged 18 and over from Aug. 23-25. The margin of error is 3 percent.
Among the poll's other findings:
•The younger you are, the stronger your belief that the government is withholding information about UFOs and extraterrestrial life: 80 percent of respondents 18-24 years old said so, compared with 75 percent of those 25-34 years old and 73 percent of those 35-49 years old.
•Just over half (53 percent) of respondents said that their level of trust in the government has remained stable over the past five years, while nearly a third (29 percent) said that they trust the government less than they did five years ago.
•Most respondents said that the government does not share enough information with the public in general (55 percent) and that the U.S. government should not withhold information about UFO sightings (60 percent) and potential encounters with extraterrestrial life (58 percent) when national security is not an issue."
Here is a link to yet another poll, this one stating that "Only a third of adults, however, believe it's either very likely or somewhat likely that intelligent aliens from space have visited our planet."
http://scrippsnews.com/node/34758
Those skeptics who have dismissively stated that thousands of cases prove nothing seem to be bathing in their own sense of superiority, and the bathtub is leaking- badly.
To summarize- skeptics can (and will) chant the Sagan mantra ad infinitum, and pick holes in some of the cases, but if they truly believe that
millions of people are delusional, a severe rethinking of their position is warranted.
