UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Marduk]

My suggestion would be that all who wish to get sidetracked regarding wormholes, should discuss those on a physics forum.

Marduk, in post #4024, stated;

"the evidence suggests that there are no Aliens within any kind of reasonable distance of our planet, maybe you should increase your math awareness while you're studying logical fallacies"

This statement began the discussion on potential shortcuts a traveller might use to traverse hundreds or perhaps thousands of light years.

The entire discussion regarding wormholes belongs in another thread and only serves to divert attention, in my opinion.

I was simply referencing the vastness of space vs the probability of advanced species capable of travelling it being around during the same geological instant that we are here.
You are the one who started waffling about wormholes, clearly something you know nothing about, maybe you should take your own advice and go waffle about it in a physics forum, my waffle (vastness of space) was entirely on topic for this thread and I do not appreciate your attempt to pretend otherwise

 

[Sledge]

It's not going well for the UFO crowd, is it? We've got one guy who can't answer a simple yes or no question, and another who can't remember what his own thread is for. It does make one wonder about the sort of person drawn to this subject.

 

[GeeMack]

It's not going well for the UFO crowd, is it?

Certainly not. The OP has taken over 800 posts, some of them very lengthy, in a thread of over 4000 posts, just to get around to making a point that everyone agreed with on the very first page! Yes, there are unidentified flying objects. Jesus H. Christ.

Okay, Rramjet, UFOs exist. Nobody is arguing against that. In fact, you would have to be a complete, dyed-in-the-wool moron to think anyone was ever arguing against that. Now how about moving on to the next step and providing some evidence to support your initial claim that aliens exist?

 

[Marduk]

Okay, Rramjet, UFOs exist. Nobody is arguing against that. In fact, you would have to be a complete, dyed-in-the-wool moron to think anyone was ever arguing against that. Now how about moving on to the next step and providing some evidence to support your initial claim that aliens exist?

no wait, how about

Okay Rramjet, you have managed to convince us all that UFO's exist, we admit we were completely wrong saying otherwise and have been lying against the evidence for their existence throughout because we have all been spoon fed by the tobacco companies and that you are in fact a genius, your work here is done

more chance of working ?

 

[Sledge]

I just skimmed through the beginning of this thread. The issue of how a mass of rubbish can coalesce into solid evidence was raised on the first page, and I've been posing it since the third. Good grief, this is like trying to nail soup to a wall with a hammer made of jelly and nails made of blancmange.

 

[Access Denied]

Here is the film – although if you had been paying attention (some hope!) you would have realised that I have posted this a number of times previously…

(http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5t3s0_ovni-a-niteroi-bresil-30dec-1992_tech)

I wasn’t sure, thanks for the link.

This is video confirmation of the “starfish” shape of the UFO as tower controller Pirouzi described in the Tehran case (http://www.brumac.8k.com/IranJetCase/)

Well, the object in the video looks like some sort of balloon or kite of to me so by your logic this is confirmation that Pirouzi saw a balloon or kite. Sorry but I reject your mundane explanation… for one thing it’s not “brighter than a star” and for another it’s not “shape shifting”.

As RoboTimbo so hilariously (if you got the reference) pointed out….

One of these things is not like the other.

Next…

No, that is merely your opinion because you have not looked for commonalities between the cases. Extraordinary speed is one for example. Silent operation is another. No obvious means of propulsion. Metalic appearance… the list could go on, as I say, you are simply NOT applying ANY scientific research to these cases…

See above and look in the mirror. These alleged “characteristics” are all based on subjective interpretations that are by definition subject to human error. This is a well established fact backed by an extensive body of scientific research. What you fail to realize or choose to ignore is the data is unreliable and therefore, scientifically, no reliable conclusions can be drawn from it.

In other words, it’s a waste of both time and effort…

More, when one begins to explore UFO reports more widely, other commonalities begin to emerge. Shape for example. The ability to “jump” locations. The types of “beings” involved. Again the list could go on, but the point is that after research it becomes apparent that the range of characteristics contained within UFO reports is actually restricted in typology! THIS is an important discovery. It means that we do NOT have, as you imply, an unlimited number of “aliens visiting” us.

Agreed to some extent… however, considering these “common” characteristics have consistently changed over time and can be found in popular literature that predates the observations, this may be considered strong evidence of anthropomorphic bias in the observations and tends to support the notion that the psychosocial/cultural hypothesis is most likely correct…

[in the absence of any unambiguous physical evidence to the contrary]

More, I have NEVER claimed that “aliens” were “visiting” us. Maybe they were already here! (but there are other hypotheses as well – interdimensional for example… we just don’t have the data to conclude ET – as the UFO debunkers paradoxically seem to do!)

Please define “interdimensional”… I don’t think you understand what the mathematical concept of higher dimensions in theoretical physics actually represent. Especially if you get your “physics” from entertainers like Michio Kaku…

Umm… I think you will find that the rest of the 12, 618 cases you cite were NOT studied by Condon and if they were, there is always the possibility that GREATER than 30% of those cases would turn out to be “unexplained”… so in fact YOU are the one being deliberately (or ignorantly) deceptive.

How do you figure? What the Condon Study shows us is that with more effort the number of unexplained cases can be reduced to around 1.5%…

[if not zero]

 

[SnidelyW]

I don't understand the bolded part. What do you think Dr. Sagan meant by his phrase and why do you think he coined it in the first place?

I think the quote was first used thusly; " For years I've been stressing with regard to UFOs that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
-- Carl Sagan, quoted from Billions and Billions, chapter 5 ("Four Cosmic Questions"), page 49
(Billions and Billions was a collection of essays, and Four Cosmic Questions was, I believe, an essay written after he had been diagnosed with myelodysplasia around 1995, and included in the book.)

From the PBS interview- Sagan states;
"...Precisely because of human fallibility, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Now, I know that Budd Hopkins responds that extraordinary claims require extraordinary investigations. And I have two kinds of responses to that.
There is a claim that a brontosaurus is tramping through the jungles today in the republic of Congo. Should a massive expedition be mounted with government funds to find it, or it is so implausible as not to be worth serious sustained systematic attention?

And my second point is that to the extent that extraordinary claims require extraordinary investigations, those investigations must be true to the spirit of science. And that means highly skeptical, demanding, rigorous standards of evidence. And it's not a hint of that from alien abduction enthusiasts ... I think that the alien abduction enthusiasts understand the need for physical evidence. It's the pathway to some degree of respectability. And for 40 years, they've been telling us that real evidence is just around the corner, it's about to be released, it's being studied at this moment - and nothing ever comes of it.
(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/aliens/carlsagan.html)

So those are Sagans public thoughts, and his apparent reasoning.

 

[SnidelyW]

I don't have much time right now to look through all of that, particularly as it's rather slow to load, but I will look at it and get back to you.

However, I notice that you snipped the rest of my post, which addressed a lot of your arguments. Any particular reason for that?

I snipped your post as I wish to deal with each of your paragraphs in a respectful manner, and time has not allowed me to post those yet.

 

[SnidelyW]

It's not really. What I'm after, and what any kid with fifth grade reading comprehension skills would realize, is a yes or no answer to a very simple question. You continue to demonstrate that your reading comprehension skills are far below that of an average fifth grader. Or perhaps you're embarrassed to answer. Or maybe you don't have what it takes to be honest. Or it's possible you don't have the guts to simply state a simple answer to a simple question. Your waffling and evasiveness is noted. However, somehow I think that given enough opportunities you actually can muster an answer to this. So let's try again, shall, we?

Regarding that thing you claim you saw that apparently intrigued you enough to get you or keep you interested in UFOs and/or aliens all these years, yes or no, do you have any evidence that the thing you saw was some particular thing? The answer should be formed as such...

No, there is no evidence that the thing I saw was some particular thing.

... or ...​

Yes, there is evidence that the thing I saw was some particular thing.​

See. Nothing to it. Any eleven year old kid could do it. Can you, SnidelyW?

Argumentum ad hominem

 

[SnidelyW]

did you describe your sighting in a post here anywhere ?

No, I did not.

It has been stated in this thread by skeptics that all eyewitness accounts are invalid for the purpose of providing evidence regarding the existence of the UFO/alien phenomena. It will serve no useful purpose to relate it here. I, like others in similar circumstances, only have told a select few of my experience.
It is a very private, yet significant experience, and one not to be dissected like a frog in a high school biology class.

 

[AWPrime]

I think the quote was first used thusly; " For years I've been stressing with regard to UFOs that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
-- Carl Sagan, quoted from Billions and Billions, chapter 5 ("Four Cosmic Questions"), page 49
(Billions and Billions was a collection of essays, and Four Cosmic Questions was, I believe, an essay written after he had been diagnosed with myelodysplasia around 1995, and included in the book.)

From the PBS interview- Sagan states;
"...Precisely because of human fallibility, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Now, I know that Budd Hopkins responds that extraordinary claims require extraordinary investigations. And I have two kinds of responses to that.
There is a claim that a brontosaurus is tramping through the jungles today in the republic of Congo. Should a massive expedition be mounted with government funds to find it, or it is so implausible as not to be worth serious sustained systematic attention?

And my second point is that to the extent that extraordinary claims require extraordinary investigations, those investigations must be true to the spirit of science. And that means highly skeptical, demanding, rigorous standards of evidence. And it's not a hint of that from alien abduction enthusiasts ... I think that the alien abduction enthusiasts understand the need for physical evidence. It's the pathway to some degree of respectability. And for 40 years, they've been telling us that real evidence is just around the corner, it's about to be released, it's being studied at this moment - and nothing ever comes of it.
(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/aliens/carlsagan.html)

So those are Sagans public thoughts, and his apparent reasoning.

I will try and explain extraordinary evidence and why not all hypothesis are equal.

Lets say we have a UFO case, and eyewitnesses give three different interpretations: alien, dinosaur and glider. Of the glider we know that those exist in the present day, of the dinosaur we know that they have existed, and of the alien we have nothing.

Extraordinary evidence is needed to make them equal before we investigate it further. Or we might need to investigate the chance of it being Jesus or fairies (highly counterproductive). This means that for the dinosaur hypothesis we need solid evidence that they exist in the present day. For the alien case we need evidence of that they exist and that they exist in the here and now.

Rramjet was suppose to do the latter, but he has failed epically.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

...Father Gill provides a precise and accurate description of the “craft” ...

Precise, maybe. No evidence for any claim of accuracy.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Argumentum ad hominem

Not actually true. While there was certainly an ad hominem element, that wasn't his argumentum, or rather, his question, which remains unanswered.

 

[RoboTimbo]

I think the quote was first used thusly; " For years I've been stressing with regard to UFOs that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
-- Carl Sagan, quoted from Billions and Billions, chapter 5 ("Four Cosmic Questions"), page 49
(Billions and Billions was a collection of essays, and Four Cosmic Questions was, I believe, an essay written after he had been diagnosed with myelodysplasia around 1995, and included in the book.)

From the PBS interview- Sagan states;
"...Precisely because of human fallibility, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Now, I know that Budd Hopkins responds that extraordinary claims require extraordinary investigations. And I have two kinds of responses to that.
There is a claim that a brontosaurus is tramping through the jungles today in the republic of Congo. Should a massive expedition be mounted with government funds to find it, or it is so implausible as not to be worth serious sustained systematic attention?

And my second point is that to the extent that extraordinary claims require extraordinary investigations, those investigations must be true to the spirit of science. And that means highly skeptical, demanding, rigorous standards of evidence. And it's not a hint of that from alien abduction enthusiasts ... I think that the alien abduction enthusiasts understand the need for physical evidence. It's the pathway to some degree of respectability. And for 40 years, they've been telling us that real evidence is just around the corner, it's about to be released, it's being studied at this moment - and nothing ever comes of it.
(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/aliens/carlsagan.html)

So those are Sagans public thoughts, and his apparent reasoning.

Wouldn't you think that UFO enthusiasts would begin to demand that the only evidence accepted now, after over 50 years, needs to be solid? The kind Rramjet is bringing to the table is fine for an enthusiast who needs justification to do some investigation. Do you think it should be enough to call "alien" at this point?

I agree with you. I don't like the "extraordinary evidence" phrase. UFO enthusiasts spend too much energy squabbling about what it means and not enough bringing any forth. Would you agree that "extraordinary claims require more than mundane evidence"? That would mean that no anecdotal evidence, even your own, would be enough to declare "alien".

 

[Marcus]

Argumentum ad hominem

Please read the definition.Simply insulting someone, whether true or not (any 11 year old kid could do it) is not an ad hom.

 

[Stray Cat]

Good to see we're still on page one of this thread... wow, it's been a long first page.

Was kind of hoping the discussion would have moved on while I've been away, but I suppose I should have known better.

Snidley: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". This doesn't mean the evidence has to be alien in origin or somehow otherworldly. It simply means the quality of the evidence has to be extraordinary in order to be compelling enough to overturn that which we presently understand. This is what is always lacking in the cases of Alien craft sightings (distinguished from UFO reports because a UFO is by definition unidentified) which are reported with such certainty disregarding the possible mundane explanations that an anecdote in the mind of a UFOlogist becomes conclusive proof... And that falls very short of the requirement of science to warrant further investigation. Add to that, idiots like Bob Dean with his faked moon UFO photos, stories of Alien bases on the Moon (all backed up with laughable 'evidence') and the world of UFOlogy is not taken seriously.
If the UFOlogists REALLY want to be accepted as serious investigators, they need to root out and disassociate themselves from the lunatic fringe who constantly present such nonsense as evidence instead of trying to support it (or at least bits of it) using the same fauly logic as those who are writing the books and doing the lecture circuit trying to convince us an Apollo 20 mission took place and was a successful secret mission to the Moon which photographed Alien bases and crashed alien crafts (just one example, plenty of other to choose).

 

[Paul2]

Snidley: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". This doesn't mean the evidence has to be alien in origin or somehow otherworldly. It simply means the quality of the evidence has to be extraordinary in order to be compelling enough to overturn that which we presently understand.

Quoted and repeated for emphasis.

 

[Astrophotographer]

Big snip

I reject “blimp” as implausible on the evidence but this is different from saying it was impossible. As for “aircraft, No sound, and disk shaped – are a bit of a clue here as to why I might reject THAT particular explanation. The witnesses used binoculars… I base my assessments on the evidence and that IS “scientific” - not on wild supposition..

Then you reject it based not on scientific evidence but on a blind belief that the eyewitness testimony is 100% accurate. Others have demonstrated that it could possibly be a blimp and you have NOT eliminated that possibility with all your handwaving. All you had to do is demonstrate that the blimp was someplace else to disprove that blimp hypothesis. So far you haven't done that. As for the aircraft hypothesis, I demonstated that an aircraft can look exactly like the images by producing the catalina video, which shows a small aircraft on a clear day that appeared to be disc shaped to the observer and on the film. I could produce more case histories where aircraft were desribed as "disc-shaped". There was no noise of the aircraft because of its distance. Therefore, simply rejecting the aircraft hypothesis because it is the wrong shape and no noise was heard is invalid and unscientific.

Oh come on, Father Gill provides a precise and accurate description of the “craft” and describes “beings” waving from the “deck” on top of it. He describes how the craft disappeared in seconds across the bay. I already stated that the things you require, while they may be interesting, are NOT what needs explication here. It is the sighting description itself. You are merely (again) trying to obfuscate the issue.

No, you were the one discussing a scientific investigation of these cases. I want to know how you are scientifically examining it. If you are just blindly accepting the witness testimony, then you really are not scientifically examining anything. You are simply pushing the "I believe" button and accepting it as factual. This ignores all the various case histories that demonstrate that people can and do make errors in observation in UFO reports.

 

[Access Denied]

It has been stated in this thread by skeptics that all eyewitness accounts are invalid for the purpose of providing evidence regarding the existence of the UFO/alien phenomena.

I see, so what you’re saying is your mind is already made up… UFO = Alien. You believe you saw an alien spaceship therefore you’re inclined to believe others who claim they have. In other words, you’re biased and this prevents you from being open-minded and evaluating each case separately based on individual merit…

That explains a lot… you’re not searching for any answers, you seek validation.

It will serve no useful purpose to relate it here. I, like others in similar circumstances, only have told a select few of my experience.

Then why bring it up? Do you think this somehow makes you “special” and better able to evaluate the “evidence” that has been presented here?

It is a very private, yet significant experience, and one not to be dissected like a frog in a high school biology class.

I’ve seen a UFO and my wife saw a UFO on two separate occasions just last year and I can’t explain any of it… big deal. Sounds to me like you’re not very confident about the validity of your experience otherwise you‘d have no problem presenting it for consideration by others…

Since you already believe we will reject your evidence out of hand, what’s the worst that could happen? I think you’re wrong about most skeptics, I don’t think they’d be here if they weren’t interested in the first place…

 

[Correa Neto]

Here is the film – although if you had been paying attention (some hope!) you would have realised that I have posted this a number of times previously…

(http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5t3s0_ovni-a-niteroi-bresil-30dec-1992_tech)

This is video confirmation of the “starfish” shape of the UFO as tower controller Pirouzi described in the Tehran case (http://www.brumac.8k.com/IranJetCase/)


...snip...

I call BS and a major fail.

Rramjet, I challenge -once again- your investigative skills. The video you posted is nothing but a hot air baloon made of paper, one of the type named "balão estrela" star baloon. It's been debunked years ago. This time, your UFO is nt even a blimp, it would be better described as a Montgolfière!

Building hot-air baloons is a hobby for many persons here in Brazil. Many of the the baloons they made are truly beauties and huge (above 30m) with many candle lights (so many that they may even look like Close Encounters' mothersip) and fireworks. Make no mistake its an illegal activity, given the obvious risk of fire these baloons and also an air traffic hazzard create, but people still do it. And yes, they are responsible for many an UFO sighting. Think of them as mega Chinese lanterns.

Check
http://www.ceticismoaberto.com/ufologia/1114/ovnis-aranha-e-bales-estrela
and for more examples of these baloons, go to.
http://www.artificio.hpg.com.br/arteamigo.html
(this link has many 20m baloons)

Now, the long exposure pic below was taken from my apartment's window (BTW, at Niterói, where I live, which is the same place where the spiked "UFO" was filmed) a couple of days ago. Yes, my "Rogue River UFO" was also photographed at Niterói.

I have no idea of the baloon's size- I guess 2 to 5 meters, based on nothing but my experience, but could be bigger - no sizes refferences makes it impossible to estimate. Its a nice comparisson pic for future Chinese lanterns case. Note that you can't se anything other than an amber light; this light may oscillate in intensity. The baloon's body usually is invisible, except in certain circunstances.

Whenever I have the opportunity, I'll shoot or film some other examples. I even have captured on film formations of lights. Unfortunately in mini DV; since my mini-DV camcorder is malfunctioning, I will not be able to capture the images soon. But all it takes is a new "UFO" fly-by, since we bought a new HD camcorder.

Snidley-
I hope this example will show you one of the reasons why I am deeply unconvinced by Rramjet's methods and evidence. Its way too flawed.