UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Sledge]

Very pertinent observation and questions Dafydd. We have the evidence that suggests "aliens"

Any chance you could show us this evidence? Just wondering, only you did say you'd present it about three months ago now.

 

[Cuddles]

Oh I see... I ask for a definition and you provide an explanation!

I won't bother to reply to the rest of your ranting, since Stray Cat summed it up about as well as possible. However, I think it's probably worth responding to this point since it really reinforces just how detached from reality you are.

You did not ask for anything. I was not talking to you in the first place. Snidely appeared to be having trouble understanding the meaning of the phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Since his misunderstanding appeared to lie at the heart of disagreements in that particular part of the discussion, I thought I'd have a shot at explaining it. None of this had anything whatsoever to do with you, you simply jumped in afterwards to try (and fail miserably at) criticising my post.

Had you actually asked me for a definition, and had I bothered responding, I would simply have told you that it's a nonsensical question. You might as well ask for a definition of the phrase "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". You can explain what is meant by it, but it's not something that can be given an absolute definition.

It is all clear to me now! LOL.

Obviously not.

So Cuddles… failing a definition of “extraordinary evidence” I think we can safely say that Sagan’s claim “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is poppycock until ANYONE can define WHAT “extraordinary evidence” actually IS.

You can safely say anything that may happen to pop into your mind. Getting anyone to agree with you is apparently proving rather more difficult.

 

[Paul2]

Your example is simply not analogous. That is, what term in your “example” is analogous to “extraordinary evidence”?

The analogy is between evidence and effort.

Nothing in your example defines extraordinary evidence.

I am looking for ANY logical definition of the term “extraordinary evidence”. NONE has been forthcoming (though many have tried). ( and of course you cannot advocate an “absolute definition of extraordinary evidence” …primarily because there IS none!)

I've defined it as "enough evidence to overthrow an extremely well-established conclusion."

Now “extraordinary evidence” is “enough evidence”? But this just quantifies the term “evidence”, it does NOT define “extraordinary evidence”.

See above.

 

[Astrophotographer]

So, where are the photos and hospital records? And even if you can supply those, again, it's evidence of that she suffered extreme UV exposure, but it isn't evidence of the source of the UV.

There are no records in the public domain. Those that have them will not present them and will not document what the health of the individuals were prior to the alleged encounter.

Missing in the whole story are that the effects are not the kind of effects one would expect from a radiation source. To become sick to the point of hair falling out and intenstinal problems would have required a significant dose of radiation (from what I recall from my nuclear training we are talking about 50 rem). This would also have indicated a blood change. One would think the medical records would reveal such a blood change and UFOlogists would have presented it. Instead, there are no medical records presented to show that there was radiation exposure. I think what they may have been exposed to is something chemical and not radiological.

Additionally, there are the claims of the witnesses that dozens of helicopters were seen with the object. Unfortunately, nobody seems to have seen the helicopters or the UFO even though it took place in a reasonably populated area, at a reasonable time of night, and near major interstate roads. Sure there are reports of people remembering helicopter noises but nothing like what the witnesses described.

 

[Stray Cat]

So what then is it physical evidence of? Something caused the damage to the car and Deputy Sherrif Val Johnson. What was the cause of the damage? What caused independent timepieces to both be running 14 minutes slow? The investigators (Police, Ford, Honeywell) were baffled. How DO we account for the physical evidence?

It is evidence that cars can get damaged and that time pieces are not always accurate... They are NOT evidence for aliens.

Oh but there was verifiable physical evidence in the case.

Provide it then... all I see is a website telling a story.
No medical records to verify the story, no photographs to verify the story, no nothing... even the county court judge threw the case out.

You don’t say…<snip to save space>...She had analyzed plant fluids exuded from the scorched greasewood and mesquite plants, and told McDonald, "There were a few organic materials they couldn't identify," but most of the sample was just sap. "Shortly after she finished her work," she told him, "Air Force personnel came and took all her notes and materials and told her she wasn't to talk about it any more." Analysis reports of physical evidence at the site have never been released to the public.”

Emphasis mine.

So no physical evidence to present there either then.

Perhaps not as short as you thought?

Not only a short road, but a dead end road to boot.

 

[Astrophotographer]

Re: the trooper car evidence - I see nothing in the damage that indicates an extraterrestrial intelligence. I could replicate the same damage with a small hammer and my hands. This is based on what the witness stated and we are not sure what his condition was at the time. Is it possible he fell asleep at the wheel and damage his car? He then added a few finishing touches (i.e. the clock and antenna) to make it appear he had been attacked by a UFO? We don't know but it seems plausible (more plausible than an alien spaceship that chose to selectively damage the car and change the time on the clock).

Re: Cash-Landrum - as I stated, without any medical records for the witnesses BEFORE and after the event (to note changes in the blood, health, etc.), this case offers very little. We have claims of sickness and hair falling out but nothing to back it up. Once again, UFOlogy failed to obtain the goods on this one. It is much better to keep it a mystery instead of trying to solve a prominent case.

Re: Socorro - The McDonald story about the Socorro case is nothing but a rumor and nothing to substantiate it. I put it in the same category as the rumors about a hoax. Questionable claim with no evidence to back it up.
The Zamora case is interesting and I have always been curious about it. I think Quintanilla said it best. He felt the answer still lay dormant in Lonnie Zamora's head. Now that Zamora is dead, I guess we will never know.

 

[Paul2]

Perhaps a good way to understand why eyewitness testimony is not valued, in general, as highly as physical evidence, etc., is to look at testimony as a story. With nothing to back it up, testimony is just that. It's not worthless, but it's not worth much, either, when the story involves an incredible claim.

If a Real Skeptic (tm) thinks this goes too far, please reply.

 

[Rramjet]

Oh really? How do you determine that dragons do not exist? How do you determine that ET's are visiting the earth? Why is the ETH plausible and the DH (Dragon hypothesis) is not? Why not hypothesize that UFOs are angels, spirits, God, or some other beings? Why does it have to indicate "aliens"?

We determine dragons do not exist primarily because we have no consistent, verifiable body of sighting reports to suggest that they do (as we do for UFOs). I don’t determine ET’s are visiting the earth but the hypothesis is valid. However I have never stated that ETH is true. Why not hypothesise such things..? People obviously do. We must assess their veracity on the evidence.

When we discover after careful research that no plausible mundane explanation exists (or is likely to exist) for a UFO report then by definition the object is “alien”.

The quotation marks in “alien” are used to indicate the specific definitional meaning that does not necessarily include the ETH.

Well, she did not get her facts correct for her paper so I am sure it will be an issue with the rest of her work. If you want an evaluation of the evidence, the worst person to evaluate it is somebody close to the problem. Their personal bias will skew the results and they will see what they want to see. Sturrock did this in his public presentation of the Sturrock panels conclusions. He stated they overturned the Condon study but they really did not. They basically restated what Condon wrote and disagreed with his opinion that nothing could be learned from studying UFOs (although Condon also stated it was still OK to study UFOs if properly done).

These are merely statement of belief from you. You provide no evidence to support your claims. Indeed the last sentence contains a claim that is demonstrably false. That is:

”Our general conclusion is that nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge. Careful consideration of the record as it is available to us leads us to conclude that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.

(…)

Therefore we strongly recommend that teachers refrain from giving students credit for school work based on their reading of the presently available UFO books and magazine articles. Teachers who find their students strongly motivated in this direction should attempt to channel their interests in the direction of serious study of astronomy and meteorology, and in the direction of critical analysis of arguments for fantastic propositions that are being supported by appeals to fallacious reasoning or false data.”​

(http://ncas.org/condon/text/sec-i.htm)

”In 1997, in Tarrytown New York, Dr. Peter Sturrock held a workshop on UFOs. Now known in ufology as the Pocantico Workshop, 161 funded by Laurance S. Rockefeller, the workshop began on September 30, and ended on November 3, 1997. A panel of nine scientists, lead by Dr. Sturrock, concluded the following:

• The UFO problem is not a simple one and it is unlikely that there is a simple answer;
• Whenever there are unexplained observations, there is the possibility that scientists will learn something new by studying those observations;
• Studies should concentrate on cases which include as much independent physical evidence as possible and strong witness testimony;
• Some form of regular contact between the UFO community and the physical science community could be productive;
• It is desirable that there be institutional support for research in this area;
• The GEPAN/SERPA project of CNES provided a valuable model;
• There may be a possible health risk associated with UFO events.

Acknowledging that UFO research is not a laboratory science, Sturrock also recommended that there should be the following distinct activities in UFO research:

• Field investigations leading to case documentation and the measurement or retrieval of physical evidence;
• Laboratory analysis of physical evidence;
• The systematic compilation of evidence into catalogues;
• The analysis of compilations of data (descriptive and physical) to look for patterns and so extract significant facts;
• The development of theories and the evaluation of these theories on the basis of the facts.”​

(http://www.narcap.org/commentary/ufocritique.pdf)

Again, there is supporting evidence for the Holocaust. There is no supporting evidence for these cases other than what the witnesses state happened.

You again wilfully ignore the whole point of my statements in this regard. You contended that the age of the evidence should be taken as reducing its value. I merely stated that you should put that argument to a holocaust survivor (or victim’s family) and see how far it gets you.

Really? Prove me wrong. Show me a UFOlogist who lists the ten best UFO cases that are not predominantly populated with cases dating before 1980? In Paul Kimball's film, he selected only two that were 1980 or later. One was Rendelsham, which one of the lead investigators, Jenny Randles, now calls Rendelshame (others have referred to it as RendleSHAM). The other was a case up in the Yukon in 1996. The rest all predated 1980. I have seen others come up with similar lists but very few date after 1980.

Then you simply have not been keeping up to date with your research. Perhaps it is YOU who is stuck in a 1950s mindset? I’ll give you a concrete example: O’Hare – Chicago International Airport UFO Sighting (7th Nov. 2006) (http://www.narcap.org/reports/010/TR10_Case_18a.pdf)

Subject: (http://ufologie.net/htm/marshallcounty79.htm)

It's evidence that the car was damaged. What it absolutely is not, is evidence of what damaged the car.

But the question of what damaged the car is the one that needs to be addressed. If there are no plausible mundane explanations, what explanation do you propose? What conclusions do you then draw? What hypotheticals might then suggest themselves?

Subject: (http://www.nicap.org/cashlan.htm)

So, where are the photos and hospital records? And even if you can supply those, again, it's evidence of that she suffered extreme UV exposure, but it isn't evidence of the source of the UV.

It is again a question of what caused the radiation burns. UV exposure does not make your hair fall out.

Subject: (http://www.ufologie.net/htm/zamora.htm)

Let's see if you've been paying attention. What is this physical evidence of?

It is physical evidence of a UFO that landed and that reportedly contained small humanoid beings.

I won't bother to reply to the rest of your ranting, since Stray Cat summed it up about as well as possible. However, I think it's probably worth responding to this point since it really reinforces just how detached from reality you are.

You did not ask for anything. I was not talking to you in the first place. Snidely appeared to be having trouble understanding the meaning of the phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Since his misunderstanding appeared to lie at the heart of disagreements in that particular part of the discussion, I thought I'd have a shot at explaining it. None of this had anything whatsoever to do with you, you simply jumped in afterwards to try (and fail miserably at) criticising my post.

Had you actually asked me for a definition, and had I bothered responding, I would simply have told you that it's a nonsensical question. You might as well ask for a definition of the phrase "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". You can explain what is meant by it, but it's not something that can be given an absolute definition.

There is a basic difficulty of understanding Sagan’s nonsensical claim "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" in that is no-one can define “extraordinary evidence”. This means that we do NOT know how to fulfil the requirements of the claim because no-one CAN provide “extraordinary evidence” because it does NOT exist.

I don’t ask for a definition of the whole phrase. I merely ask for a definition of terms and THAT is a rational, logical and prudent thing to do. We MUST understand what is required before we can fulfil the requirements of the claim.

For example one can BOTH explain and define the terms in "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". That is, eating healthy food makes it less likely you will need a visit from a doctor. “apple”: a type of firm edible fruit that contains high nutritional value and is considered to be healthy to eat”. “day” a period of time defined by a single revolution of the earth. “doctor”: a professionally trained person who specialises in the medical treatment of human beings…. And so on… the point is that there is NO term in the claim that cannot be satisfactorily defined and thus it is easy for us to fulfil the requirements of the claim if we so choose. The same CANNOT be said about Sagan’s claim.

UNTIL anyone can define “extraordinary evidence”, Sagan’s claim is impossible to fulfil, and thus a nonsense claim.

The analogy is between evidence and effort.

You stated:
”Look at it this way: to jump (physically) a miniscule amount requires a minimal effort; to jump a moderate amount requires a moderate amount of effort; to jump an extraordinary amount requires an extraordinary amount of effort.”

You require evidence to jump? Nonsense. Pure nonsense. This does absolutely nothing to define “extraordinary evidence”!

I've defined it as "enough evidence to overthrow an extremely well-established conclusion."

But how is “enough evidence” extraordinary? Of course having “enough” evidence is NOT extraordinary. It is simply having sufficient evidence to support or refute your claims. NOTHING extraordinary about that. You have merely “qualified” the term evidence - in that you want a sufficient amount of it. But that is in itself an ordinary, everyday requirement. That is, the evidence required is ordinary and the amount is ordinary… how do you get “extraordinary” from that?

There are no records in the public domain. Those that have them will not present them and will not document what the health of the individuals were prior to the alleged encounter.

Missing in the whole story are that the effects are not the kind of effects one would expect from a radiation source. To become sick to the point of hair falling out and intenstinal problems would have required a significant dose of radiation (from what I recall from my nuclear training we are talking about 50 rem). This would also have indicated a blood change. One would think the medical records would reveal such a blood change and UFOlogists would have presented it. Instead, there are no medical records presented to show that there was radiation exposure. I think what they may have been exposed to is something chemical and not radiological.

Medical records are private. Would YOU want your medical records released to the general public? Chemical? Sure, maybe, but then how and WHAT chemical? And how do you explain chemical burns from people driving down the road (as you state in a reasonably populated area near a major interstate road) who stop to witness a UFO?

Additionally, there are the claims of the witnesses that dozens of helicopters were seen with the object. Unfortunately, nobody seems to have seen the helicopters or the UFO even though it took place in a reasonably populated area, at a reasonable time of night, and near major interstate roads. Sure there are reports of people remembering helicopter noises but nothing like what the witnesses described.

“Betty, Vickie and Colby were not the only witnesses to the strange happenings at Huffman. An off duty Dayton policeman and his wife were driving home from Cleveland through the Huffman area the same night and also observed a large number of CH-47s. A man living in Crosby, directly under the flight path, reported seeing a large number of heavy military helicopters flying overhead. Oilfield laborer Jerry McDonald was in his back garden in Dayton when he saw a huge UFO flying directly over head.”​

(http://www.nicap.org/cashlan.htm)

Re: the trooper car evidence - I see nothing in the damage that indicates an extraterrestrial intelligence. I could replicate the same damage with a small hammer and my hands. This is based on what the witness stated and we are not sure what his condition was at the time. Is it possible he fell asleep at the wheel and damage his car? He then added a few finishing touches (i.e. the clock and antenna) to make it appear he had been attacked by a UFO? We don't know but it seems plausible (more plausible than an alien spaceship that chose to selectively damage the car and change the time on the clock).

Yeah, much better to suppose that the well respected Deputy Sherriff suddenly and inexplicably goes mad and stages a UFO attack - on an open road where anyone could have driven along and seen him at any moment - than it is to suppose that he is telling the truth.

” Investigations occurred immediately, both by the sheriff's department and by investigators from the Center for UFO Studies. The police determined that Johnson's car travelled about 950 feet after the first damage occurred. No cause could be found for the event, including collision with another vehicle or a low-flying plane, a hoax on the part of Johnson, or anything else.”

(…)

“When Everett Doolittle arrived on the scene, Val Johnson's police car was front-end-first in the left-hand ditch, with the other end sticking out into the left-hand lane of the road. The "impact point" was determined by the location of the broken glass of the headlight on the road, 953 feet from where the car was found. From that point, "yaw marks" (described as faint skid marks caused by putting a car out of gear without applying the brakes) travelled in a straight line for 854 feet down the road. These became dark skid marks from there to where the car stopped moving, going in a straight line for most of the remaining length, turning abruptly at the end toward the ditch.”​

(http://ufologie.net/htm/marshallcounty79.htm)

Re: Cash-Landrum - as I stated, without any medical records for the witnesses BEFORE and after the event (to note changes in the blood, health, etc.), this case offers very little. We have claims of sickness and hair falling out but nothing to back it up. Once again, UFOlogy failed to obtain the goods on this one. It is much better to keep it a mystery instead of trying to solve a prominent case.

Yet there was enough medical evidence to support a lawsuit!

” In 1981 I represented three People in a lawsuit against the United States Government for injuries that resulted from their contact with an unusual aerial object. Betty Cash, Vicky Landrum and Colby Landrum are the only three People to ever sue our government for injuries from a UFO.”​

Peter Gersten, Attorney (http://www.ufocasebook.com/Pineywoods.html)

Re: Socorro - The McDonald story about the Socorro case is nothing but a rumor and nothing to substantiate it. I put it in the same category as the rumors about a hoax. Questionable claim with no evidence to back it up.
The Zamora case is interesting and I have always been curious about it. I think Quintanilla said it best. He felt the answer still lay dormant in Lonnie Zamora's head. Now that Zamora is dead, I guess we will never know.

Yeah, that’s the way to resolve the case. Imply insanity. You forget the number of other officers involved who not only heard Zamora’s “running commentary” of the incident over the police radio, but also arrived on the scene immediately after to witness the physical evidence left behind. Again you imply that a well respected police officer suddenly went mad and staged a UFO encounter – reporting on the details as he did so! Yeah, sure… that’s a plausible explanation! LOL.

 

[Rramjet]

Update to a broken link

In an earlier post I referenced a case and provided a link that has been brought to my attention as linking to a “damaged” file. I therefore offer updated links to the same location.

The Trent - McMinnville UFO (11 May 1950)
(http://brumac.8k.com/trent1.html)
(http://brumac.8k.com/trent2.html)

The first link goes to a technical discussion of the photographs and a refutation of the Sheaffer/Klass argument regarding veiling glare.

The second link goes to a broader discussion of other technical and personal issues regarding the history of the sightings, the analysis, the refutation of the "cloud shadow" argument and so on.

Interested parties may find the second article is easier to read than the first.

 

[TSR]

We determine dragons do not exist primarily because we have no consistent, verifiable body of sighting reports to suggest that they do (as we do for UFOs).

.
Your comparison fails in that no one here is denying that UFO exist.

Why do you keep trying to frame the debate in those terms?
.

I don’t determine ET’s are visiting the earth but the hypothesis is valid.

.
Valid, but fails in that there is not a single piece of evidence to unambiguously support it, unlike the hypothesis that there are mundane explanations for UFOs.
.

However I have never stated that ETH is true. Why not hypothesise such things..?

.
Because it makes no more sense than to hypothesize that they are all the FSM gracing us with His presence.

In fact, less, given that we *have* pictures which are unambiguously His Noodly Majesty floating ... well, majestically over the land.
.

People obviously do. We must assess their veracity on the evidence.

.
Great! What unambiguous evidence do you offer that we should even consider ETH?
.

 

[wollery]

It is physical evidence of a UFO that landed and that reportedly contained small humanoid beings.

Nope.

Care to try again?

 

[GeeMack]

Your comparison fails in that no one here is denying that UFO exist.

Why do you keep trying to frame the debate in those terms?

Because since all he has is incredulity and ignorance on which to base his case, he has to be dishonest in his presentation to continue to fool himself into believing he's got something more than crap?

 

[Astrophotographer]

We determine dragons do not exist primarily because we have no consistent, verifiable body of sighting reports to suggest that they do (as we do for UFOs). I don’t determine ET’s are visiting the earth but the hypothesis is valid. However I have never stated that ETH is true. Why not hypothesise such things..? People obviously do. We must assess their veracity on the evidence.

There is just as much evidence for all these things as there are for alien spaceshpis. Therefore, they are all equal.

These are merely statement of belief from you. You provide no evidence to support your claims. Indeed the last sentence contains a claim that is demonstrably false.

It is obvious you are using Hoyt as your source and not Condon. Condon stated the following regarding future research of UFOs:

Scientists are no respecters of authority. Our conclusion that study of UFO reports is not likely to advance science will not be uncritically accepted by them. Nor should it be, nor do we wish it to be. For scientists, it is our hope that the detailed analytical presentation of what we were able to do, and of what we were unable to do, will assist them in deciding whether or not they agree with our conclusions. Our hope is that the details of this report will help other scientists in seeing what the problems are and the difficulties of coping with them.

If they agree with our conclusions, they will turn their valuable attention and talents elsewhere. If they disagree it will be because our report has helped them reach a clear picture of wherein existing studies are faulty or incomplete and thereby will have stimulated ideas for more accurate studies. If they do get such ideas and can formulate them clearly, we have no doubt that support will be forthcoming to carry on with such clearly-defined, specific studies. We think that such ideas for work should be supported.

Some readers may think that we have now wandered into a contradiction. Earlier we said that we do not think study of UFO reports is likely to be a fruitful direction of scientific advance; now we have just said that persons with good ideas for specific studies in this field should be supported. This is no contradiction. Although we conclude after nearly two years of intensive study, that we do not see any fruitful lines of advance from the study of UFO reports, we believe that any scientist with adequate training and credentials who does come up with a clearly defined, specific proposal for study should be supported...

Therefore we think that all of the agencies of the federal government, and the private foundations as well, ought to be willing to consider UFO research proposals along with the others submitted to them on an open-minded, unprejudiced basis. While we do not think at present that anything worthwhile is likely to come of such research each individual case ought to be carefully considered on its own merits.

This formulation carries with it the corollary that we do not think that at this time the federal government ought to set up a major new agency, as some have suggested, for the scientific study of UFOs. This conclusion may not be true for all time. If, by the progress of research based on new ideas in this field, it then appears worthwhile to create such an agency, the decision to do so may be taken at that time. (Condon Bantam Paperback edition p. 2-3)

So, Condon did state that further study of UFOs was OK. Therefore, it is NOT "demonstrably false"

Then you simply have not been keeping up to date with your research. Perhaps it is YOU who is stuck in a 1950s mindset? I’ll give you a concrete example: O’Hare – Chicago International Airport UFO Sighting (7th Nov. 2006) (http://www.narcap.org/reports/010/TR10_Case_18a.pdf)

Subject: (http://ufologie.net/htm/marshallcounty79.htm)

This is not a top ten list as I requested. I can list many UFO cases in the past few decades but many have reasonable explanations. The O'hare sighting has it own problems. Are we now discussing this case?

Yeah, much better to suppose that the well respected Deputy Sherriff suddenly and inexplicably goes mad and stages a UFO attack - on an open road where anyone could have driven along and seen him at any moment - than it is to suppose that he is telling the truth.

There is nothing in the damage that indicates anything extraordinary. Can you prove the Sherriff did not stage the event? How do you determine he is "well respected"? Have you seen his personel record? Can you share it with us if you have? Until you can, then it is a plausible hypothesis. Another hypothesis I saw was that his car was hit by a plasma/ball lightning and it caused him to lose control of his car. This seems almost as bad as the ETH for this case since the damage seemed to be selective.

Betty, Vickie and Colby were not the only witnesses to the strange happenings at Huffman. An off duty Dayton policeman and his wife were driving home from Cleveland through the Huffman area the same night and also observed a large number of CH-47s. A man living in Crosby, directly under the flight path, reported seeing a large number of heavy military helicopters flying overhead. Oilfield laborer Jerry McDonald was in his back garden in Dayton when he saw a huge UFO flying directly over head.

Have you ever heard a CH-47? They are very noisy. Imagine 10-20 of them. They would wake everybody up within a 5 mile radius of their flight path and there definitely would have been more than "a few" witnesses. Do you have more details about these observations? From what I recall (and I have to look about for my records on this one), some of these observations were not during the time in question (I think the Crosby sighting was at 10PM) making them questionable as verifying the story. Also, those that reported seeing the helicopters did not see the UFO! I also suggest you look at the ranges of these helicopters and tell me where they came from.

Medical records are private. Would YOU want your medical records released to the general public? Chemical? Sure, maybe, but then how and WHAT chemical? And how do you explain chemical burns from people driving down the road (as you state in a reasonably populated area near a major interstate road) who stop to witness a UFO?

So, the evidence for this case is hidden even though Betty Cash has been dead for some time. Betty had no problem telling her story to the public but chose not to release the basic information regarding her health before and after the event in question.

As for the source of the Chemicals, perhaps that is not where they received the exposure. We don't know without the medical records if they were exposed to any chemicals.

Yet there was enough medical evidence to support a lawsuit!

A lawsuit that was lost for varoius reasons. The Lawyer was Peter Gerstein, who is not what you would consider the most level headed and reasonable individuals around.

http://www.ufowatchdog.com/hall2.html

Again you imply that a well respected police officer suddenly went mad and staged a UFO encounter – reporting on the details as he did so! Yeah, sure… that’s a plausible explanation! LOL.

I was commenting that McDonald's rumor story is invalid since we have no source. It is just a rumor and nothing else. Using it as 'evidence' is just trying to pad the story. I also stated it was on the same level as rumors about a planned hoax!

The actual physical evidence does not support anything extraordinary. There is nothing in the evidence that could not be done by something on earth. Others have made other suggestions about what he might have seen. We do not know what he saw and he may have either made it up or had been fooled by something. That is all that Quintanilla was stating. He did not say he was insane so you can stop your emotional appeals for the witness. The case is interesting but nothing conclusive about an alien spaceship.

 

[RoboTimbo]

When we discover after careful research that no plausible mundane explanation exists (or is likely to exist) for a UFO report then by definition the object is “alien”.

But you said here:

If an object is unidentified, HOW can it BE a particular thing?

Did you mean that UFO can only NOT mean something mundane?

 

[GeeMack]

When we discover after careful research that no plausible mundane explanation exists (or is likely to exist) for a UFO report then by definition the object is “alien”.

If you want to invent your own definitions from scratch, sure. But of course it's equally valid to arbitrarily redefine other words and phrases and say something like, "When we discover after careful research that no plausible mundane explanation exists (or is likely to exist) for a UFO report then by definition the object is “dog doo”." See? Anyone can play that crap.

But of course that's not how most people over about 12 years old communicate (other than maybe those who are mentally retarded and/or mentally ill). And it might be one of the reasons that everything you mistakenly believe to be a valid argument has failed.

 

[Access Denied]

The Zamora case is interesting and I have always been curious about it. I think Quintanilla said it best. He felt the answer still lay dormant in Lonnie Zamora's head. Now that Zamora is dead, I guess we will never know.

I think I have a pretty good idea of what the answer is… one of these days I need to put all my findings together into a more “digestible” form. Anyway, as you know, I tend to agree with what Zamora himself thought he saw… an experimental test vehicle. It wasn’t until Jim and Coral Lorenzen (APRO) and later, Ray $tanford, got hold of the story that it turned into a “close encounter of the third kind”…

It is perhaps telling that the Socorro case is not one of the cases NICAP chose to submit to the Condon Study for review.

 

[Access Denied]

The Trent - McMinnville UFO (11 May 1950)

I present the following photo of the younger Trent at the "scene of the crime" without commentary…

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?&imgurl=3005e278fbf74521

 

[RoboTimbo]

So what then is it physical evidence of? Something caused the damage to the car and Deputy Sherrif Val Johnson. What was the cause of the damage?

I think you mean "deputy sheriff", but let's not quibble about that.
You will have to show that mundane causes of damage to vehicles never occur. And you will have to show that witnesses can never make mistakes, such as at Campeche.

What caused independent timepieces to both be running 14 minutes slow?

The deputy synchronizing the dash clock to his watch when he began his shift. His watch was 14 minutes slow to begin with. Pretty mundane.

The investigators (Police, Ford, Honeywell) were baffled.

As are you, apparently.

 

[tsig]

I have a suspicion that even if I DID provide you with such evidence, you STILL would not believe it.

Nevertheless, the fact is that I don’t know for sure that such physical evidence as you require actually exists. Sure there are claims made for such evidence, but I have as yet to verify those claims to my own satisfaction. I am sorry if this is not the answer that you might want, but I am a novice in the field of UFO research, and I have yet to personally explore any such claims. However, given also that my interest has now been definitely piqued by the “denial machine” - as represented by members of the JREF (insofar as they seem unable to put up a rational, logical or scientific case against the evidence for UFOs I have presented so far) - if I have the time, I most definitely do now (soon) intend to explore the claims that such evidence actually does exist. I might find for or against. Who knows, but I am definitely looking forward to conducting the research – and I will most certainly report my findings in this forum.

ETA: Oh wait... was there not a case SnidelyW presented containing physical evidence? Yes... here it is...
(http://ufologie.net/htm/marshallcounty79.htm) (Not sure if it is the same link as he had but I am sure it is the same case).

...and what about this one?

(http://www.nicap.org/cashlan.htm)

...both cases contain physical evidence...

I seem to remember that the Lonnie Zamora case had physical evidence as well!
(http://www.nicap.org/zamoradir.htm)

So that should be good enough to get things started on the road to giving you physical evidence...

I said physical evidence not links to more stories.

I would have thought you would start with research and then reach conclusions.

 

[tsig]

They can't be coming from Alpha Centauri, that star is a binary, it has a twin. Twin stars cannot support any rocky planet orbiting it as the orbit would more than likely send the planet into space or hurtling it into the star itself.

The planet does a figure eight around both planets. since it passes into the gravitational interzone the inhabitants were easily able to develop space travel and that's why they're so advanced.

this info is so secret that no one is aware of it.

You won't believe what you don't know.