UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Rramjet]

I stated:
”Much of Freidman’s (and my own) criticism of SETI is - that given the sheer NUMBER of stars, SETI has a snow-ball’s chance in hell of success – so the money would be better spent on researching what we already have here in our own back yard!”

So your argument is that there are aliens visiting us right here on this planet, but that because there are so many places they could be we shouldn't bother looking for them, and should just look for them instead. And this doesn't strike you as at all contradictory?

Your “reformulation” of my statement may be contradictory – but not the statement itself. This again represents the UFO debunker mindset perfectly. Take a logically consistent statement, then “reformulate” it until it is apparently no longer logically consistent, then make a claim to the effect that the original statement is contradictory!

I am merely stating that given the overwhelming evidence that we have “aliens” here already, then rather than wasting resources on a speculative venture that is highly unlikely to succeed, we should investigate the evidence we already have!

I do wonder how you can at the same time claim that our atmosphere and near space is crowded with aliens, and that SETI does not have a chance of finding any of their signals.

Then you (like the SETI specialists) pretend to know how the “aliens” might communicate (that is on a specific radio frequency!). This is nonsense – on what do you base your knowledge of “alien” technology?

 

[Rramjet]

It doesn't even look like a photograph to me.

Texture is more like a watercolour. Or if it was a photograph, then it's been very, very heavily retouched. In which case there's little point in speculating on details, because we don't know what's real.

Retouching/enhancing would explain anomalies like the way several of the searchlight beams appear to be of uniform brightness all the way up while others fade out halfway.

My guess (and it can only be a guess) is that the original photo showed fewer searchlight beams and a bright patch on a cloud layer where they converged. I suspect extra searchlight beams and AA shell explosions have been added to make the picture look more dramatic.

I present objective evidence and you take a “guess” based on … what? …. Your faith-based belief system of course. You are obviously no expert on photography (“Texture is more like a watercolour. Or if it was a photograph, then it's been very, very heavily retouched”). Objectively you cannot even observe the details of the photo correctly (“…searchlight beams appear to be of uniform brightness all the way up while others fade out halfway”)

“The spectacular anti-aircraft barrage came after the 14th Interceptor Command ordered the blackout when strange craft were reported over the coastline.”

”Author Ralph Blum, who was a nine-year-old boy at the time, wrote that he thought "the Japanese were bombing Beverly Hills. (…) The "white cigar-shaped object" took several direct hits but continued on its eastward flight.”

Reporter Bill Henry of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "I was far enough away to see an object without being able to identify it...I would be willing to bet what shekels I have that there were a number of direct hits scored on the object." (http://brumac.8k.com/BATTLEOFLA/BOLA1.html)

Some of the most intriguing testimony of the UFO comes from a woman who was a volunteer Air Raid Warden…

(…)

"It was huge! It was just enormous! And it was practically right over my house. I had never seen anything like it in my life!" she said. "It was just hovering there in the sky and hardly moving at all."

"It was a lovely pale orange and about the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. I could see it perfectly because it was very close. It was big!"​

(http://www.ufocasebook.com/battleoflosangeles.html)

View attachment 16558

From page 48 of Allan Hendry's UFO handbook. Photograph of a spotlight on a thin cloud. I think that demonstrates that the Battle of LA photo is probably not an alien spaceship.

I wonder though if Hendry’s spotlight was coloured “orange”? It “probably” wasn’t.

Skeptoid's Battle of LA episode:

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4171

This “sceptical” article is merely an “opinion” piece. There is no investigation or analysis at all. The basis of this article seems to be that because there were conflicting eyewitness accounts (some saw aeroplanes, some saw blimps (of course!), some saw a single object, others saw more than one, etc) the whole thing can be written off smoke and light show caused by “jittery nerves”.

Then the author goes on to spout some guff about the scurrilous disinformation campaign that constituted the “MJ-12” documents as if THIS was the “source” for the whole episode… conveniently forgetting of course the actuality of the event itself and the subsequent newspaper articles and official military statements – beginning the very next day with headline, front-page news in the LA Times!

 

[Rramjet]

Rramjet should have no vote since he is the one presenting it to the group as "objective evidence". The group as a whole should decide if it really is worthwhile "objective evidence" or not. If not, it should be rejected as being worthy of discussion.

This again perfectly demonstrates the UFO debunker mindset.

If a UFO proponent cites a poll (X number of people believe..., X number of astronomers/scientists/etc believe...) then that UFO proponent is invariably howled down as being "unscientific" for the reason that the beliefs of mere numbers of people do not constitute evidence... yet here we have a call for a "poll" to be conducted among the UFO debunkers in order to "decide" whether they believe an issue is worthy of discussion or not... Ha!

 

[Paulhoff]

Then you (like the SETI specialists) pretend to know how the “aliens” might communicate (that is on a specific radio frequency!). This is nonsense – on what do you base your knowledge of “alien” technology?

You don't ever go to their site do you. You do know that you can and they will answer any questions about what they do and what they may expect in the way of signals.

By the way, do you have any idea on how the radio works?

Paul

 

[RoboTimbo]

This again perfectly demonstrates the UFO debunker mindset.

If a UFO proponent cites a poll (X number of people believe..., X number of astronomers/scientists/etc believe...) then that UFO proponent is invariably howled down as being "unscientific" for the reason that the beliefs of mere numbers of people do not constitute evidence... yet here we have a call for a "poll" to be conducted among the UFO debunkers in order to "decide" whether they believe an issue is worthy of discussion or not... Ha!

Actually, it was deciding about the objectivity of your "evidence". It has been decided that anecdotes are not objective.

Do you have any objective evidence for aliens since your hypotheses have been demolished?

 

[Blackwell]

<snip>
[Rramjet's comments on the Skeptoid piece:]
This “sceptical” article is merely an “opinion” piece. There is no investigation or analysis at all. The basis of this article seems to be that because there were conflicting eyewitness accounts (some saw aeroplanes, some saw blimps (of course!), some saw a single object, others saw more than one, etc) the whole thing can be written off smoke and light show caused by “jittery nerves”.

Then the author goes on to spout some guff about the scurrilous disinformation campaign that constituted the “MJ-12” documents as if THIS was the “source” for the whole episode… conveniently forgetting of course the actuality of the event itself and the subsequent newspaper articles and official military statements – beginning the very next day with headline, front-page news in the LA Times!

Rramjet, you really, really need to re-read the article or re-listen to the podcast. Dunning makes it clear that he brings up MJ-12 as the reason for the 40-year-late attribution of the event to aliens; he is NOT claiming that the MJ-12 docs are the source of the actual BoLA episode.

 

[wollery]

I stated:
”Much of Freidman’s (and my own) criticism of SETI is - that given the sheer NUMBER of stars, SETI has a snow-ball’s chance in hell of success – so the money would be better spent on researching what we already have here in our own back yard!”

Your “reformulation” of my statement may be contradictory – but not the statement itself. This again represents the UFO debunker mindset perfectly. Take a logically consistent statement, then “reformulate” it until it is apparently no longer logically consistent, then make a claim to the effect that the original statement is contradictory!

I am merely stating that given the overwhelming evidence that we have “aliens” here already, then rather than wasting resources on a speculative venture that is highly unlikely to succeed, we should investigate the evidence we already have!

Firstly, the evidence is not overwhelming. If it were I'd be on your side of this argument.

Secondly, by your argument we should stop spending money on all sorts of research, such as deep ocean exploration, particle physics, cosmology, etc, and spend it all instead on medical research. Are you proposing that?

Then you (like the SETI specialists) pretend to know how the “aliens” might communicate (that is on a specific radio frequency!). This is nonsense – on what do you base your knowledge of “alien” technology?

Do you actually understand how SETI works? Because from your statement above it seems that you don't.

 

[GeeMack]

This again perfectly demonstrates the UFO debunker mindset.

If a UFO proponent cites a poll (X number of people believe..., X number of astronomers/scientists/etc believe...) then that UFO proponent is invariably howled down as being "unscientific" for the reason that the beliefs of mere numbers of people do not constitute evidence... yet here we have a call for a "poll" to be conducted among the UFO debunkers in order to "decide" whether they believe an issue is worthy of discussion or not... Ha!

The fact that you are wholly incapable of making a convincing argument has nothing to do with poll numbers. You own your crappy arguments from incredulity and ignorance. Certainly you didn't create them, but you did take them. They belong to you. Blaming other people for your lack of ability to present a cogent case is another display of your juvenile approach and your dishonesty.

 

[GeeMack]

Do you actually understand how SETI works? Because from your statement above it seems that you don't.

Not only has there been no evidence presented to support Rramjet's inane claim that aliens exist, no evidence has been presented to support the notion that he understands science at any level, much less the simple concepts behind the SETI program.

But I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

 

[Astrophotographer]

This again perfectly demonstrates the UFO debunker mindset.

If a UFO proponent cites a poll (X number of people believe..., X number of astronomers/scientists/etc believe...) then that UFO proponent is invariably howled down as being "unscientific" for the reason that the beliefs of mere numbers of people do not constitute evidence... yet here we have a call for a "poll" to be conducted among the UFO debunkers in order to "decide" whether they believe an issue is worthy of discussion or not... Ha!

You are the one presenting all these cases for scrutiny by this forum (at least that is what I thought was going on here). I think it is up to the members of the forum to decide if the case is worthy of further discusion. If somebody does feel the case has value, then they can say, "wait a minute, this is interesting". Otherwise, the consensus should be to "move on to something better".

You claimed it was "objective evidence" and we examined it and found it to be pretty much worthless. If you want to keep presenting this as your "best case" or "one of your best cases", that is your mistake (you obviously have never examined the case closely). This case has been shown to have no value. Demonstrate otherwise or let's move on to something that has more value.

 

[Astrophotographer]

II wonder though if Hendry’s spotlight was coloured “orange”? It “probably” wasn’t.

Present actual evidence that it was "orange"? Considering all the flak bursts and smoke, who knows what was being reported. This case is dead end. Why are you even using it as "evidence"? It has no evidence other than this photograph, which shows nothing but spotlights.

BTW, where did this source of information come from? What is the source document? The website does not say.

Let's examine some actual sources from the time (Oakland Tribune 2/25/1942 p. 5):

Long Beach police, who said they saw both flights of planes head toward sea, said that although they were unable to count the planes, there were several in each wave, clearly visible in the searchlight cones. They said shells burst near the planes but no hits were seen.
Air raid -wardens were concerned about flares they said were being sent up from the ground in strings of five" or six. The flares assertedly were seen from the downtown Los Angeles area, as bright red

They also reported waves of airplanes coming in from or going towards the sea. No such airplanes could come in from the sea since no aircraft carriers were in the area at the time. Obviosuly, these reliable witnesses were mistaken about what they saw. Interesting that these RED flares were floating about. Red is a lot like orange.

Typical of the rumors that filled the air was one that an unidentified plane had been shot down by anti-aircraft fire at 180th Street and Vermont Avenue, 15 miles from downtown Los Angeles....Another was passed on by the desk sergeant at the 77th Street station, who told central headquarters he saw two planes fall from the cone of the searchlights.

Again, why are these reliable witnesses reporting airplanes being shot down? None were shot down. Exactly how reliable can these people be?

However, another official said that no U.S. craft had gone in pursuit of the supposed raiders, because of danger from their own ground fire.

The woman who is the "volunteer" air raid warden (indicating she really probably had very little training/experience) states she saw planes trying to intercept her "orange" object. No interceptors were sent up (for good reason) so what does that mean about her testimony? Is it the same as those reporting waves of planes coming from the sea and seeing planes being shot down?

And then we have the Japanese-Americans who were arrested for "flashing lights" (presumably out to sea) during the air raid (same source). They probably were wrongfully arrested based on some very flimsy stories told by people who thought they saw something or misinterpreted what these people were doing. Hmm....sounds very familiar.

This case is plain awful. Putting it up as some "objective evidence" is a joke. It was war nerves until you can demonstrate otherwise with REAL evidence.

 

[Astrophotographer]

This “sceptical” article is merely an “opinion” piece. There is no investigation or analysis at all. The basis of this article seems to be that because there were conflicting eyewitness accounts (some saw aeroplanes, some saw blimps (of course!), some saw a single object, others saw more than one, etc) the whole thing can be written off smoke and light show caused by “jittery nerves”.

Yes. Exactly what investigation did YOU make? You just posted a link and, as always, cut and paste what others wrote. You are a parrot and not a scientist.

 

[wollery]

Yes. Exactly what investigation did YOU make? You just posted a link and, as always, just cut and paste what others write. You are a parrot and not a scientist.

Yeah, but 'e's got beautiful plumage!

 

[Astrophotographer]

Yeah, but 'e's got beautiful plumage!

Must be a norwegian blue.....

 

[Jocce]

”Much of Freidman’s (andThen you (like the SETI specialists) pretend to know how the “aliens” might communicate (that is on a specific radio frequency!). This is nonsense – on what do you base your knowledge of “alien” technology?

Maybe it would be wise to try to find out why SETI is searching for signals on a very narrow band before jumping conclusions? It was very easy to find and I'm sure you can manage too.

 

[Jocce]

This “sceptical” article is merely an “opinion” piece. There is no investigation or analysis at all. The basis of this article seems to be that because there were conflicting eyewitness accounts (some saw aeroplanes, some saw blimps (of course!), some saw a single object, others saw more than one, etc) the whole thing can be written off smoke and light show caused by “jittery nerves”.

Then the author goes on to spout some guff about the scurrilous disinformation campaign that constituted the “MJ-12” documents as if THIS was the “source” for the whole episode… conveniently forgetting of course the actuality of the event itself and the subsequent newspaper articles and official military statements – beginning the very next day with headline, front-page news in the LA Times!

Yeah, we all know that if it's in the news paper it must be factually correct.

 

[Jocce]

This “sceptical” article is merely an “opinion” piece. There is no investigation or analysis at all.

And you mean that http://www.ufocasebook.com/battleoflosangeles.html is a thorough analysis that conclusively proves that the observed objects were of alien origin? You need to start looking into these things for positive evidence of aliens, not for lack of evidence for the mundane. It's unidentified with some mundane explanations being far more plausible than aliens.

 

[Rramjet]

I do wonder how you can at the same time claim that our atmosphere and near space is crowded with aliens, and that SETI does not have a chance of finding any of their signals.

It’s quite simple really. We have lots of evidence that suggests ET might be here already, but absolutely none on where ET is from and how ET might communicate and especially that ET might actually WANT to communicate with us… it seems the evidence points to the fact that when it comes to communication with us, ET is distinctly indifferent.

Thank you, but i wasn't asking for pictures of things that look like flying saucers. I was asking for evidence that it's actually an alien craft on those photos f ex. Why are those more special than every other UFO photo you can find on the web?

Well, these seem to be some of the most discussed photo’s (esp. McMinnville and Trindade) – but you are right, there are many other good photos (clear, independently verified, etc).

So far, it's photos of something. Let's not jump conclusions now ok?

I was merely meaning that if I posted links to all the photos I consider to be very good, you would immediately accuse me of some form of link spamming, etc… so I restricted my list to allow a more focussed discussion.

It's a story about something that is supposed to have happened to some family 125 years ago. Is this part of the irrefutable evidence you talk about? It falls in the same category as stories about unicorns.

If you believe that a factual report published in Scientific American ranks on a par with a SPOOF website on unicorns, then I am afraid you have a seriously twisted view of what constitutes evidence.

UFO debunkers also seem to insist that evidence somehow deteriorates with age. There is of course no scientific or logical basis for this. I guess it is just a faith-based part of the overall UFO debunker belief system.

What makes the report so compelling IS the fact that it predates ANY public UFO discussion and thus cannot be considered to be influenced in any way by a public zeitgeist.

You don't need to (can't) show that eyewitnesses are 100% reliable. You don't need to (can't) exclude all mundane explanations. What you need to do is provide positive, objective evidence for your aliens. So far you have produced nothing but blurry photos, stories and links to obscure websites. It's simply not enough.

Interestingly UFO proponents have NEVER claimed eyewitnesses to be 100% reliable, yet to maintain the UFO debunker position, the eyewitnesses MUST be 100% unreliable!

Interestingly also, to maintain the UFO debunker position and to counter the fact that eyewitness description describe objects that plainly defy mundane explanations, there MUST be an appeal to “unknown” mundane phenomena – a position that is in essence an “anything goes” solution. This is not a scientific or logically sustainable position and it is something that UFO proponents definitely do not countenance.

There is no such thing as “proof positive” in science. There will always remain the possibility that a counterfactual will arise to refute any well established hypotheses - history is replete with examples. It is after all an appeal to “possibility” that UFO debunkers often claim for there mundane explanations, however unlikely or implausible the explanation might be, yet here, the debunkers want to exclude “possibility” from the equation.

The McMinnville photos are not “blurry”. Many other UFO photos exist that also are not “blurry”, but in fact are crystal clear. It is simply another myth propagated by the UFO debunkers that all UFO photos are blurry. I simply direct your attention to (http://www.ufocasebook.com/bestufopictures.html). Of course you will be no doubt able to alert us to hoax pictures in the mix, as well as some natural phenomena, but many of the pictures are quite startling. There are some interesting ones here as well (http://www.ufopicture.org/nasa_ufo_pictures.html). There are also some interesting communications between the astronauts that relate to some of the pictures (http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicphotos.html).

 

[learner]

delurk for a moment.

Its been 293873399 pages since I checked. Please save me the trouble looking. Is there any evidence yet, or is it still anecdote central?

 

[EHocking]

It’s quite simple really. We have lots of evidence that suggests ET might be here already...

Yet, after months of posting here, you are unable to present any evidence beyond anecdotes. Seeing shapes in photographs don't count either.

Where is the physical evidence? Since you declare there is lots of evidence, surely some of it is physical and unambiguously extraterrestrial?