Merged Skeptics vs. Knowers/Believers

King of the Americas said:
Never trust your eyes...?
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I never said any such thing. I refuted the notion that there must always come a point where we must trust our eyes. How you get from there to never trusting our eyes is beyond me but not surprising.

Advocacy of suicide or violence to others removed.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Locknar
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That wasn't nice.


What I have rejected are explanations that DON'T MATCH what I saw.
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So you keep saying. I won't bother to correct your misstatement.

This line of logic is completely and utter ridiculous.
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I'm glad you're not allergic to straw.
 
KOTA: if, as you say, you do not know that the lights you saw were indeed objects, then it's certainly probable that you do not know them to be any type of flying craft, known or unknown. In that case, their maneuvers, beyond what any earthly aircraft could perform, would be a moot point.

Parallel example (and I am not suggesting this as an explanation for what you saw, just an illustration): Coming into Atlanta one night aboard an airplane, my daughter was sitting in a window seat and I was next to her. She asked, "What are those things?"

I saw what she meant: four or five brilliant red and green lights, wildly racing around apparently not far beneath us (I'd guess we were at about 5000 feet at that point). They were weird--much faster than any aircraft could possibly be and chasing around in impossibly tight turns.

Then I saw, beyond them, some fireworks. It was a laser show at Stone Mountain; the lasers were hitting a thin layer of cloud below us and showing up as bright specks of red and green light. But they weren't objects, and so they could perform with abandon maneuvers impossible for any airplane.
 
Spektator said:
KOTA: if, as you say, you do not know that the lights you saw were indeed objects, then it's certainly probable that you do not know them to be any type of flying craft, known or unknown. In that case, their maneuvers, beyond what any earthly aircraft could perform, would be a moot point.

Parallel example (and I am not suggesting this as an explanation for what you saw, just an illustration): Coming into Atlanta one night aboard an airplane, my daughter was sitting in a window seat and I was next to her. She asked, "What are those things?"

I saw what she meant: four or five brilliant red and green lights, wildly racing around apparently not far beneath us (I'd guess we were at about 5000 feet at that point). They were weird--much faster than any aircraft could possibly be and chasing around in impossibly tight turns.

Then I saw, beyond them, some fireworks. It was a laser show at Stone Mountain; the lasers were hitting a thin layer of cloud below us and showing up as bright specks of red and green light. But they weren't objects, and so they could perform with abandon maneuvers impossible for any airplane.
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My motto when trying to solve difficult technical problems is, "If it doesn't make sense to me, then I am making an invalid assumption".

I think the same is true of this type of sighting. If what I see appears to break the laws of physics, then I am not looking at what I think I'm looking at. For instance, if I am looking at a small object moving fairly close to me, and I think for some reason that it is a large object a good distance away, then I am probably going to be very impressed that it is able to manuever with such agility. However, I'm making an invalid assumption about the inertia of the object, which I mistakenly belive is large enough to make the maneuvers impossible.
 
KoTA, when I wrote this about you ignoring this post, I hadn't realized that you were suspended for the train tracks thing. No animus intended; feel free to address as you feel like it. We saw lights. We were wrong. Anyhoo,

carlitos said:
Just very, very briefly.

"light in night sky" is not "ideal conditions" for identifying anything. Your bias appears to be from knowing about aircraft. That you have dismissed, out of hand, all of the obvious natural explanations for "light in night sky" is odd. Pasted from the UFO thread for your consideration here:
carlitos said:
As a teenager, a buddy and I were driving and we saw a "huge fire over in the next subdivision." We were curious, so we drove that way. There was no fire, it appeared to be just a bit further. And again, and again, we drove from the next town to the next town. We ended up driving 30 miles to an oil refinery, where we saw the gas burnoff flame. It was nothing extraordinary, just an oil refinery having a normal night.

We thought it was a house fire a mile away, but it was an oil refinery 30 miles away. And we were on the ground in a car, not floating through the air in a plane.

But anyway, this phenomenon is obvious to most.
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If we hadn't made that drive, today I would still be telling everyone about the "great house fire of '85," and posters here might be checking news reports or mundane explanations and trying to help me think. See a connection?

ETA - Or potentially, if we only drove a little way and gave up "because the light kept moving away from us" and concluded that this was "no human-piloted craft." For instance.
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King of the Americas said:
I'll concede that.

I am COMPLETELY unaware of any craft we have that can meld together with another similar craft to create a 4-fold larger version...

So, what would that be, exactly?

Could you post a video?
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Again with the craft.

Why do you presume it must be a craft?
 
King of the Americas said:
I saw 'something'. It didn't look familiar, at all.

So, I started looking for potential 'known' objects that it could have been.

To date, I have found and have been offered exactly ZERO matches.

At present, I conclude that it was something other than a human piloted craft.

When I am presented with a depiction of a known entity, that MATCHES what I saw, I concede.

Where did I go wrong?
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Assuming that your mind's database is coexistent with reality.
 
King of the Americas said:
They were star-like in appearance in that they weren't 'solid', but rather sparkled as though they were light...

They weren't stars, however, because they didn't look like 'distant' points of light.

Admittedly I can't say that they WERE 'material' objects. They certainly didn't perform or behave like any material I know of.
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There seems to be a bit of data inflation going on here.
 
King of the Americas said:
I 'd like this thread to consist of "who's winning" the debate...

The skeptics/debunkers or those who believe/know they saw 'something' that wasn't a man-made and a human piloted craft.

This is a "skeptic's forum", James Randi fancies himself a debunker and even a hoaxer. I've always felt a little like so much chum being tossed into an already shark infested pool. I guess I'd say I felt more attacked than welcomed, but this being where it is, it was expected. That said, I've felt the tide turn lately (thank you ramjet & jakesteele)

I have seen 'things' I still have yet to identify, or have a plausible explanation offered by an aviation expert. And too I've opened several threads, and or taken part in many discussions, debates, and or deliberations here upon this, all ending in the same way...

'I' think the skeptics' thinking is skewed, and their methodology flawed, in arrival at "debunked claim". I am sure they are equally convinced of 'their' winning the logical argument.

So, I want to hear from those "on the fence", those who haven't made up their mind as to which group is 'probably' correct.

IS there 'something' around/up there/in the heavens that ISN'T us?

OR

Are ALL such reports merely a product of identification error?

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Which camp has offered YOU the strongest argument(s)?
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I wouldn't say either side has offered me an argument stronger than the other, as it is virtually impossible IMO to prove the existence of the paranormal. But what I would say is that the skeptic side is extremely dogmatic and aggressive in its insistence that there is no such thing as a paranormal anomaly. Everything for them has a logical 2 dimensional explanation, and they are very rigid in adhering to that.

This makes it very difficult for believers to debate with.
 
Jason 1978 said:
I wouldn't say either side has offered me an argument stronger than the other, as it is virtually impossible IMO to prove the existence of the paranormal. But what I would say is that the skeptic side is extremely dogmatic and aggressive in its insistence that there is no such thing as a paranormal anomaly. Everything for them has a logical 2 dimensional explanation, and they are very rigid in adhering to that.

This makes it very difficult for believers to debate with.
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Cool. Our replacement KotA has arrived.
 
The "bigger picture" is that true believers like KotA demonstrate to those whose interests are similar but not as firmly held that there are alternative and most often sensible solutions to the situations the t.b.s bring up incessantly.
Showing these sensible solutions can save many an intellect, but the died-in-the-wool t.b. demonstrates a diminished capacity to comprehend alternatives. I guess there's some merit in discussions about the inherent problems with the woo-believers belief, but much past page 10, it's just ego shouting at ego, and a waste of time.
Ya know, the Moon is NOT populated, and the inhabitants thereof have not interfered in human development since the dawn of civilization. That all such tales tend to be culture specific.. not describing a single Moon culture, but being the output of fertile/demented human minds fails to be comprehended, with the woo solution the ONLY solution acceptable.
This gets old quickly.
 
Jason 1978 said:
I wouldn't say either side has offered me an argument stronger than the other, as it is virtually impossible IMO to prove the existence of the paranormal. But what I would say is that the skeptic side is extremely dogmatic and aggressive in its insistence that there is no such thing as a paranormal anomaly. Everything for them has a logical 2 dimensional explanation, and they are very rigid in adhering to that.

This makes it very difficult for believers to debate with.
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Absolute piffle. If the paranormal can't be proved, then it isn't having an impact on us. If it's not having an impact on us it might as well not exist. What's to debate?
 
Just on the off chance he comes back (my money's on between a week and a month):
King of the Americas said:
They weren't stars, however, because they didn't look like 'distant' points of light.
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How exactly would one tell the difference between a distant point of light and a close point of light?
 
Aww, he didn't really suggest that. He was talking about 'trusting your eyes' and why don't you stand on a train track with a train coming and tell him you don't 'trust your eyes' or something like that. He just wanted an excuse to run off, and took advantage of 'death by mod' or whatever you call it. Cuddles is right - week or a month.
 
It was (IIRC) 'stand' on a train tracks with a train coming, and 'tell me that you don't trust your eyes' or something
 
carlitos said:
It was (IIRC) 'stand' on a train tracks with a train coming, and 'tell me that you don't trust your eyes' or something
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Another way to put it:

"If you see lights in the sky making impossible maneuvers, think faraway aliens, not nearby fireflies."
 
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