Merged Is ufology a pseudoscience?

[John Albert]

This thread isn't about "putting up or shutting up".

Agreed. This thread is, at least nominally, about "critical thinking in ufology."

Unfortunately, the ufologists posting in the thread have consistently demonstrated a lack of understanding of several basic concepts of critical thinking, and have engaged in a number of blatant logical fallacies.

Perhaps we don't have the same views on what constitutes "anecdotal evidence". Please let me know. We might be talking about the same thing and not realize it.

Well up to this point, it appeared we had been in full agreement about the definition of anecdotal evidence, to wit: "a solely verbally-related account absent of any additional corroborating evidence."

However, I have a feeling that's about to change...

Also, by all means see if you can find something scientific to discuss. I'm open to discussing scientific findings.

This invitation is arrogant and disingenuous. Several of the posters in this thread have repeatedly raised some very basic questions about flaws in your methodology regarding the subject, but you have consistently brushed them off with weaselly allegations that "this thread is about critical thinking, and science is not critical thinking."

Firsthand knowledge is not anecdotal evidence.

OK, I'll concede that this is technically correct. "Firsthand knowledge" alone is definitely not anecdotal, until the person with that knowledge relates it to another; at that point it fits the very definition of anecdotal.

Technically anecdotal eveidence is "secondhand or hearsay". A report from a firsthand witness is not anecdotal evidence.

This is wrong. Hearsay is a subset of anecdotal evidence. To put it plainly, hearsay is anecdotal evidence once-removed, or a story repeated by a third party.

For example: "I saw the defendant pull out a pistol and shoot the cashier three times in the chest," is anecdotal evidence told from the first person point of view by an alleged eyewitness, whereas "My cousin Bill told me he saw the defendant pull out a pistol and shoot the cashier three times in the chest," would be hearsay.

Typically what most people mean, and what I presume you and most other people presume to be anecdotal is a "verbal account", which is in actual fact not anecdotal unless it relays an account. For example, "I heard so and so say they saw a UFO" is anecdotal. The phrase "I saw a UFO", is not anecdotal.

This is wrong. You keep trying to redefine the definitions of words to bolster your argument, and that is a dishonest argument tactic. It's also a logical fallacy called (not surprisingly) "redefinition." Using it one-sidedly as you did to bolster your argument in the middle of a debate already in progress, is also an example of "moving the goalposts."

Also, if you missed it earlier, consider anecdotal medical case reporting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_report

Medical case reporting is irrelevant to this discussion. Real medical doctors do not use anecdotal evidence as the sole criteria for making a diagnosis. At most, it's used as a jumping-off point for narrowing down the patient's condition to a number of possible ailments already known to exist through scientific process.

Furthermore, modern scientific medicine has a specific methodology for assessing the validity of paranormal claims.

Here's an example:

Reiki is a form of religious-based "spiritual healing" developed by a 20th Century Buddhist monk from Japan. The practice of Reiki involves a trained practitioner meditating or praying to spirits while moving his hands around above the body of the patient. There is no known physical mechanism whereby this form of treatment can possibly work, therefore there's no scientific basis to expect it will have any effect whatsoever on any real, physical ailments.

Yet, Reiki practitioners and some of their patients claim the practice has effectively cured them of physical ailments. These claims constitute anecdotal evidence.

Is it good critical thinking practice to just accept these anecdotes at face value? Of course not. Human beings are highly prone to cognitive biases. They tend to allow their hopes and dreams to cloud their judgment of reality. They sometimes lie and deceive others for any number of reasons, sometimes for no reason at all. They sometimes even imagine things that aren't real.

Because both subjects and researchers are human beings prone to bias, we need to find some method to eliminate that bias and ensure objectivity. Proper critical thinking would entail looking for some objective way to find falsifiable evidence to evaluate these claims.

The accepted practice in medicine for establishing this kind of evidence is the double-blind test, with control and test groups, and neither the subject nor the researcher knows which group is the control and which is the test.

Our first hypothesis: "Reiki is more effective than placebo at curing or diminishing the progression of the illness."

Our second hypothesis: "Reiki is not more effective than placebo at curing or diminishing the progression the illness, but patients report its effectiveness in reducing suffering associated with the illness."

Our null hypothesis: "Reiki is less effective than placebo reducing the illness and diminishing related suffering."

So we set up our study. Our test set consists of a randomized group of patients suffering from a real illness, receiving treatment according to traditional Reiki methodology by a trained and experienced Reiki practitioner. The control set is a randomized group of patients suffering from the same illness, but receiving fake treatment by a professional janitor with no formal knowledge of Reiki practice, who has been instructed to mimic the actions of Reiki practice: slowly moving his hands around above the patient while pretending to concentrate.

The test is designed in such a way that neither the patients nor the researchers can possibly know which patients received the real treatment and which received the fake.

After the tests have been done, we gather our data. First, we ask all the patients how they feel afterward. Then we run a series of medical tests on all the patients to see which, if any, actually exhibited an improvement after the treatment. We plot all the results on a graph, and that would constitute our objective evidence.

So we look at our evidence, and see whether there's conclusive proof that Reiki is more effective than placebo (fake treatment) at curing the ailment or having the more subjective effect of relieving suffering.


This is the methodology by which science is done. It's a methodical process, designed to control as many variables as possible, except the ones we want to test.

Critical thinking acknowledges that the methodology of science represents the very best practices to date for discovering the objective nature of our Universe, thus critical thinking and the practice of science go hand-in-hand.

There. I said it. OK?

You wanna talk critical thinking, you have to accept scientific methods. Otherwise, you're not being critical, and I propose using a different term for your kind of thinking.

Say, "credulous thinking," "pseudoscience," or "woo."

 

[RoboTimbo]

OK Robo this is a reasonable way to proceed. Note that it was Tomkins who said all anecdotal evidence is useless, to quote, "Anecdotes are not evidence. Of anything. Ever." and that is who I was referencing there.

Yep, you're right, he did. I can only speak for myself, though.

With your approach we are getting into similar territory as the "Sagan's Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence" thread. I've already pointed out that firsthand reports from reliable witnesses are acceptable evidence ( not proof ). I would say that firsthand knowledge gained from direct interaction by a verified source of proven reliability is extraordinary ... but still not "proof".

But this is a thread devoted to critical thinking so, no, firsthand reports from reliable witnesses are not acceptable evidence. Nor is such interaction in any way extraordinary. Note what Stray Cat linked to:

"Anecdotal evidence is often unscientific or pseudoscientific because various forms of cognitive bias may affect the collection or presentation of evidence. For instance, someone who claims to have had an encounter with a supernatural being or alien may present a very vivid story, but this is not falsifiable. This phenomenon can also happen to large groups of people through subjective validation."​

However, the point of this thread isn't to "prove" anything, only to determine if it reasonable to believe UFOs exist and from there propose reasonable hypotheses that might yeild clues as to what they are and why they are here.

j.r.

Well, the point of the thread was to approach it with a skeptical mindset. Anecdotal evidence is a non-starter, no matter how you try to spin it. I think you'll need to go a different direction.

 

[Turgor]

I take away from the OP by ufology that after consulting a mod this thread was started with their blessings, because the topic differs from the main evidence for UFOs thread. But so far it seems this is mainly an effort to get anecdotes to be accepted as evidence when it comes to Ufology.

Was this your intention ufology, or did you have something else in mind? Because I believe we have by now established that anecdotes will not be accepted as evidence.

 

[GeeMack]

I really think you should get out and do more sky watching if you can. You always get so personal about why I believe UFOs exist and assume it's only because I believe people with more education, more training, more relevant experience with flight, some of them scientists, also believe in them ... no those aren't the only reasons ... I don't just believe that other people have seen them.

If you want to get all persoanl, I've seen one myself as well. I have no doubt about their existence. So go ahead and start in with the insults and belittlement and mockery ... I'm sure the JREF people would be proud of you, especially since I came here seeking to build bridges, to enlist the help of people in the JREF. Tell us all GeeMack, what did we all really see then? Educate us ... I'll start nominating you for the language award.

And I say your claim to have seen what you believe to be aliens could easily and simply be explained by you lying. You have been dishonest, so there's support for that possibility. I have open-mindedly considered several possible reasons people might believe they saw aliens, or say they saw them even if they don't really believe it. I've suggested common mundane phenomena, known to exist. Your closed minded focus on a singular explanation that involves entities that aren't known to exist demonstrates clearly that you are not thinking critically about the issue.

But if anything goes, if we can make up any old crap that doesn't require objective evidence, here's a possibility that is every bit as reasonable, every bit as well supported as your conjecture that aliens are visiting Earth...

There's a god who hates you, who enjoys taunting you, who gets pleasure out of teasing you. And that god creates visions of mysterious flying things in your mind and in some other people's minds. That god puts the thought in your head and those other people's heads that those flying things are craft piloted by aliens.​

Your continued ignorance of this and who knows how many other explanations with the same lack of objective evidence as your notion about aliens, goes to show you aren't willing to apply critical thinking to the matter. Constructing your arguments as you are on a lack of critical thinking is bound to fail as...

[...] a method to help establish the truth [...]

 

[ufology]

You keep referring to "reliable witnesses" and "credible witnesses" in the same way that Rramjet keeps parroting the "backed up by military, radar and physical trace evidence" as if these things are conclusive ...

So I would ask: How do you define a 'credible witness', it's such a subjective thing ...

And then how do you define a 'reliable witness'? Is it one that simply turns up when they say they will, to tell you what they think they saw?

I'm not sure exactly what Rramjet's references were, but in a generic sense we may be speaking of the same types of things. They are far from "subjective" and I don't claim them to be "conclusive".

Rather than just say "the military", and how it is more credible and reliable than other types of twitnesses, I'll use two illustrative examples, both of which have happened in real life.

Example One: Unrealiable & Non Credible Witness

A person who has been convicted of fraud for forging names on payroll cheques and who has little formal education, and is known to have been seeking publicity with respect to UFOs, suddenly claims they have been abducted by aliens, fails a lie detector test, and can't prove anything.

Example Two: Reliable Credible Witness

Air Force Pilot

Watch this video and ask yourself the questions again. I think you'll get the point. There are very measureable qualities for credibility and reliability. It isn't subjective. I will grant that this clip is more recent and the training for military pilots has evolved over time, however it still illutrates the point. There are minimum requirements for knowledge, endurance, skill and reliability. You don't even get near a USAF fighter jet unless you have it all ( or are attending an air show ).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbwTpHA0AsY&feature=related

j.r.

Related Human Interest Docudrama link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuR1p7UdI2Y

 

[Complexity]

They are crawling out of the woodwork...

Where is my box?!?

 

[Turgor]

Why get bogged down in what is a reliable or credible witness when all that is offered by them are anecdotes? Is there any physical evidence I am not aware of they have to support claims that some UFOs are alien spacecraft?

 

[ufology]

And I say your claim to have seen what you believe to be aliens could easily and simply be explained by you lying.

Of course it could GeeMack. But you'd be wrong. You just can't give any single one person any credit can you? If one person actually saw something, then maybe someone else did too. Then you would be on that slippery slope into the Twilight Zone from which you could never return. That's why you need to get out and watch the sky more. Maybe someday you will see one yourself ... man would that be a life changer for you.

j.r.

 

[RoboTimbo]

"Anecdotes are no good as evidence."

"Anecdote doesn't really describe these, since they are told in the first person."

"Anecdotes aren't falsifiable."

"Well, we can question the witnesses."

"Anecdotes suffer from perception problems."

"But these are credible witnesses."

"Anecdotes are not critical thinking."

"I know, but what about these really good anecdotes?"


ufology, have enough people told you that anecdotes are useless for validating extraordinary claims yet?

 

[ufology]

"

ufology, have enough people told you that anecdotes are useless for validating extraordinary claims yet?

Like I said to GeeMack ... look up more, maybe you'll have your own anecdote someday.

In the mean time when you say "validate" I presume you mean provide conclusive proof. We've been through that already. I've conceeded anecdotal evidence doesn't "prove" anything already. This thread isn't about "proof". It's about what is reasonable. Anecdotal evidence has often been the basis for investigating things. Given the persistence of anecdotal evidence, do you think it's reasonable not to investigate? Not to interview witnesses? Not to look for scientific evidence? What can you post to offer as something constructive?

j.r.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Like I said to GeeMack ... look up more, maybe you'll have your own anecdote someday.

How would that help?

In the mean time when you say "validate" I presume you mean provide conclusive proof. We've been through that already. I've conceeded anecdotal evidence doesn't "prove" anything already. This thread isn't about "proof". It's about what is reasonable. Anecdotal evidence has often been the basis for investigating things. Given the persistence of anecdotal evidence, do you think it's reasonable not to investigate? Not to interview witnesses? Not to look for scientific evidence? What can you post to offer as something constructive?

j.r.

You presume incorrectly. I said validate because it seemed to be the mot juste so your continued strawman about proof isn't going anywhere.

As for investigating for those so inclinded, go for it. Coming to a skeptical forum for the purpose of critically examining anecdotes, not so much.

So what can you post as something constructive?

 

[Stray Cat]

Rather than just say "the military", and how it is more credible and reliable than other types of twitnesses, I'll use two illustrative examples, both of which have happened in real life.

But again, time after time I hear from UFOlogists with one breath that the Military are credible witnesses and in the next breath that the military are witholding information and UFO files and complicit in cover ups of UFO sightings.
This is what my description of a credible witness was based upon.
If the military person is saying "yes, there were aliens" he's credible, if he's saying "There were no aliens" he's lying and covering up the fact there are aliens.

Example One: Unrealiable & Non Credible Witness

A person who has been convicted of fraud for forging names on payroll cheques and who has little formal education, and is known to have been seeking publicity with respect to UFOs, suddenly claims they have been abducted by aliens, fails a lie detector test, and can't prove anything.

Again you fall into the trap of holding up the obvious as what you see as an example... But what about the unobvious non credible witness?

How do you safeguard those from getting through your subjective evaluation of their character?

Example Two: Reliable Credible Witness

Air Force Pilot

Watch this video and ask yourself the questions again. I think you'll get the point. There are very measureable qualities for credibility and reliability. It isn't subjective. I will grant that this clip is more recent and the training for military pilots has evolved over time, however it still illutrates the point. There are minimum requirements for knowledge, endurance, skill and reliability. You don't even get near a USAF fighter jet unless you have it all ( or are attending an air show ).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbwTpHA0AsY&feature=related

There is example Three as well: Apparently reliable set of credible witnesses who all turn out to be talking blx.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35jolCqH9_I
A trained military pilot who reports being followed and surrounded by several UFO's that don't show on radar, he turns on his FLIR system and films them whilst giving a running commentary. He lands and the footage is analysed by other trained military staff who are also baffled by the UFOs which are keeping pace with the fighter jet and can be clearly seen skipping though the clouds on the video. The military decide to go public and it splashes the UFO story on the international news. Only then does someone look at it critically and discovers that what the highly trained ("credible") military pilot saw and filmed and which was confirmed by several other trained ("credible") military staff was in fact a group of oil wells in the Campech Bay, burning off natural gas. So the UFO's were actually easily identifiable not flying oil wells.

So remind me again, what makes a military person any more credible than a non military person?

 

[Astrophotographer]

Example Two: Reliable Credible Witness

Air Force Pilot

Watch this video and ask yourself the questions again. I think you'll get the point. There are very measureable qualities for credibility and reliability. It isn't subjective. I will grant that this clip is more recent and the training for military pilots has evolved over time, however it still illutrates the point. There are minimum requirements for knowledge, endurance, skill and reliability. You don't even get near a USAF fighter jet unless you have it all ( or are attending an air show ).

Nobody finds AF/Navy/Marine/Army aviators/pilots more brave and respected than I do. I have met a few of them over the years (I work with a former P-3 pilot). However, like all humans, they are prone to error. An example can be the British Tornado pilots (six different crews) who misperceived a booster rocket reentry as a stealth fighter flyby on November 5, 1990?

http://www.ufonet.nl/nieuws/tornado/index2.html

I can present other cases if you like.

What about all the pilots who crashed their aircraft or damaged it due to "pilot error"? Then there are the small fraction of "pilots", who tend to exaggerate what they see and what they did. This can occur. Add to that list are the "pilot wannabees", who sound like they know what they are talking about but never stepped into a cockpit. A few of them have been involved in UFO folklore. Mel Noel AKA Guy Kirkwood is one of them.

The bottom line is just because somebody has a high profile position like a pilot does not mean they are "reliable witnesses". They can be considered respectable but that is about as far as I take it. As Carl Sagan once wrote:

"No anecdotal claim - no matter how sincere, no matter how deeply felt, no matter how exemplary the lives of the attesting citizens - carries much weight on so important a question. As in the older UFO cases, anecdotal accounts are subject to irreducible error." (Demon Haunted World P. 180)

 

[Stray Cat]

Like I said to GeeMack ... look up more, maybe you'll have your own anecdote someday.

Are you going to advise me to do the same?
Because before you do, I'll tell you that I have spent countless nights in the UFO hot spots of the UK 'looking up', both as a 'believer' and still now as a sceptic. I have traveled the country when 'UFO flaps' have been reported to try to be in the right place at the right time. Never have I seen anything that 'defied plausible mundane explanation', But I have seen things that other people saw too and they thought these objects had defied mundane, simply because they have no real concept of misperception, optical illusion and weather effects on mundane flying things.

I've said int he past to some of my more 'woo' friends. If you want to guarantee nothing paranormal happens, take me with you.

Anecdotal evidence has often been the basis for investigating things. Given the persistence of anecdotal evidence, do you think it's reasonable not to investigate? Not to interview witnesses? Not to look for scientific evidence? What can you post to offer as something constructive?

I think that where possible all claims should be investigated. What worries me is the type of person doing the investigating, because time after time, they lack the capacity to utilise critical thinking and scientific method. Most of them even lack basic recording/reporting skills and often get details wrong or miss them out altogether because they don't fit with the "it's aliens" conclusion they want to push.

 

[Rramjet]

Once I went down to Mac Arthur Park and what do you know, Weird Al Yankovic wasn't that far off with his song Jurassic Park. I actually saw a real live T Rex. It ate me of course, but I had a sea saw with me and I opened his stomach and came out. It was a lotta fun.

Since anecdotes are evidence, you can't deny that's a piece of evidence for the existence of T-Rex now can you?

I guess you missed this:

Luckily we have the science of psychology to guide us. The study of perception and the factors that lead us into misperception of why people deceive and in what contexts is well documented. We can use that knowledge to assess anecdotal evidence.

Regardless of the strange beliefs you make up for your straw crtics, Rramjet, unidentified ≠ misidentified. Why do you pretend otherwise?

I was merely noting that the belief of the debunkers/critics/sceptics/cynics is that UFO reports are primarily the product of a misidentification of mundane objects. Indeed much argument in this very thread has centred around the contention that we cannot believe anecdotes because of the many factors that lead to a misperception of mundane objects.

In light of that, I am merely proposing that there is a scientific method to test that contention: There should be no difference in defined characteristics between UFO reports that have been determined to have mundane explanations and those reports that remain unidentified. A simple, straightforward test of the hypothesis that UFO reports are the result of a misidentification of mundane objects.

People here are big on calling UFOlogy pseudoscientific, yet when a falsifiable (scientific) null hypothesis is proposed, they run for the hills! LOL. That tells me that these people are not interested in scientific exploration or critical thinking – for here is a chance to scientifically test one of their principle beliefs – and if they had any confidence in that belief at all, they would not be afraid to test it. Seems they are afraid though …wonder why that is?

No, this is wrong. Bad data do not aggregate into good data.

“The argument has been made that weight of five pieces of weak data cannot be turned into a whole of strong data. That mistates the practice and point. 'Weight of Evidence' is somewhat of a misnomer; more accurately it's the fit of evidence that is key rather than its weight. It is how pieces of evidence fit together, complement one another, create a picture larger than themselves that is the determinant, rather than the weight.” (http://www.toxicologysource.com/law/daubert/judgingthejudges/weightofevidence.html)​

You may also be interested in this contention (and the conversation surrounding it) from one of the contributors here:

That is the beauty of using multiple observations. It is a case of "the more the merrier". The erroneous observations eventually drop out…

AstroP was talking about the impossibility of anecdotal reports of the trajectory “fireballs” being accurate, yet if you have enough of them…

You know, all of the eloquence and sophistry and smart sounding arguments in the world aren't gonna change the fact that anecdotes are not evidence.

”The expression anecdotal evidence refers to the use of particular instances or concrete examples to support a general claim. Such information (sometimes referred to pejoratively as "hearsay") may be compelling but does not, in itself, provide proof.” (http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/anecdoteterm.htm)​

” Despite its limitations, anecdotal evidence is important in some areas of research, such as case study research, where the emphasis might be on learning as much as you can about a specific situation and you have to depend on a person's own experience for information/data. Even in areas where anecdotal evidence is not considered valid or reliable for the type of study that you want to conduct, it can strongly suggest lines of research.” (http://www.uow.edu.au/student/attributes/statlit/modules/module1/anecdotal.html)​

So put up or shut up. Either present compelling evidence for UFOs or forget about it.

Ummm …wrong thread mate. This is a thread about Critical Thinking in UFOlogy …methodologies rather than case studies.

Critical thinking acknowledges that the methodology of science represents the very best practices to date for discovering the objective nature of our Universe, thus critical thinking and the practice of science go hand-in-hand.

There. I said it. OK?

You wanna talk critical thinking, you have to accept scientific methods. Otherwise, you're not being critical, and I propose using a different term for your kind of thinking.

So let’s put my null hypothesis to the test. Or are you afraid of it too?

There should be no difference in defined characteristics between UFO reports that have been determined to have mundane explanations and those reports that remain unidentified.

A simple, straightforward test of the hypothesis that most UFO reports are the result of a misidentification of mundane objects.

You talk the talk. Can you walk the walk?

 

[Astrophotographer]

Like I said to GeeMack ... look up more, maybe you'll have your own anecdote someday.

Ouch....As an amateur astronomer, I think I can say I look up at the sky a significantly greater amount of the time than the average person. I notice a lot and have seen a lot. However, I have yet to see anything I can not identify. I am over 50 years old and consider myself to have been an amateur astronomer for close to 40 of them. Am I unlucky? Am I unobservant? Am I an "unbeliever"? What prevents me from seeing these magical craft but allows tens of thousands of people to see them?

 

[RoboTimbo]

See as critical thinking includes the use of logic and therefore the avoidance of logical fallacy, this is not a good approach.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/burden-of-proof.html

What you saw was something you couldn't identify. No one needs to prove that to you, if you think it was something other than an unidentified flying object, then the burden of proof rests with you.

Thanks for the link, Stray Cat. It's probably worth repeating what it says here:

"Anecdotal evidence is often unscientific or pseudoscientific because various forms of cognitive bias may affect the collection or presentation of evidence. For instance, someone who claims to have had an encounter with a supernatural being or alien may present a very vivid story, but this is not falsifiable. This phenomenon can also happen to large groups of people through subjective validation."​

So I think everyone agrees that anecdotal evidence is best reserved for pseudoscientists looking for pseudoaliens.

 

[Stray Cat]

What prevents me from seeing these magical craft but allows tens of thousands of people to see them?

Take the lens cap off?

Patrick Moore once took a series of photographs of a total eclipse and only realised he hadn't taken the lens cap off after it was all over.

 

[Complexity]

People lie, are mistaken, are delusional, misunderstand what they've experienced, are easily fooled, see what we want to see, and are often mentally ill, hallucinatory, or insane.

Anecdotes are not evidence.

I demand reproducibility.

 

[ufology]

Jet Pilot Chases UFO

Are you going to advise me to do the same?
Because before you do, I'll tell you that I have spent countless nights in the UFO hot spots of the UK 'looking up', both as a 'believer' and still now as a sceptic./reporting skills and often get details wrong or miss them out altogether because they don't fit with the "it's aliens" conclusion they want to push.

Hey Stray ...

Sure there are reports by people who should know what they are looking at but don't get it right. The original point was that you were contending they are all of the same reliability and credibility because it is all "subjective". So I pointed out with examples how that reasoning is not accurate. If it's obvious that the fraudualent publicity seeker is less credible, then I've made my point. Now we have a report obtained from a USAF investigatior.

Status: Unexplained.
Source: Head of USAF Project Bluebook
Specific dates and names witheld for security reasons.


Summer 1952:

About ten o'clock in the morning, a radar base picked up an unidentified target. It was an odd target in that it came in very fast -- about 700 miles per hour -- and then slowed down to about 100 miles per hour. The radar showed that it was located northeast of the airfield, over a sparsely settled area.

The radar operators reported the target, and two F-86's were scrambled. The radar picked up the F-86's soon after they were airborne, and had begun to direct them into the target when the target started to fade on the radarscope.

The F-86's were told to go up to 40,000 feet. But before the aircraft could get to that altitude, the target had been completely lost on the radarscope.

The F-86's continued to search the area at 40,000 feet, but could see nothing. After a few minutes the aircraft ground controller called the F-86's and told one to come down to 20,000 feet, the other to 5,000 feet, and continue the search. The two jets made a quick letdown, with one pilot stopping at 20,000 feet and the other heading for the deck.

The second pilot, who was going down to 5,000 feet, was just beginning to pull out when he noticed a flash below and ahead of him. He flattened out his dive a little and headed toward the spot where he had seen the light.

As he closed on the spot he suddenly noticed what he first thought was a weather balloon. A few seconds later he realized that it couldn't be a balloon because it was staying ahead of him. Quite an achievement for a balloon, since he had built up a lot of speed in his dive and now was flying almost straight and level at 3,000 feet and was traveling "at the Mach."

Again the pilot pushed the nose of the F-86 down and started after the object. He closed fairly fast, until he came to within an estimated 1,000 yards. Now he could get a good look at the object. Although it had looked like a balloon from above, a closer view showed that it was definitely round and flat -- saucer-shaped. The pilot described it as being "like a doughnut without a hole."

As his rate of closure began to drop off, the pilot knew that the object was picking up speed. But he pulled in behind it and started to follow. Now he was right on the deck.

About this time the pilot began to get a little worried. What should he do? He tried to call his buddy, who was flying above him somewhere in the area at 20,000 feet. He called two or three times but could get no answer. Next he tried to call the ground controller but he was too low for his radio to carry that far. Once more he tried his buddy at 20,000 feet, but again no luck.

By now he had been following the object for about two minutes and during this time had closed the gap between them to approximately 500 yards. But this was only momentary. Suddenly the object began to pull away, slowly at first, then faster. The pilot, realizing that he couldn't catch it wondered what to do next. When the object traveled out about 1,000 yards, the pilot suddenly made up his mind -- he did the only thing that he could do ... "

============================

Even if we set the radar evidence aside, you can't possibly think that the story given by the fraudulent publicity seeker is equally as credible as a report obtained by USAF specialists, from an Air Force pilot who could make out details of an object he was chasing at less than 1000 yards during the day?

About the Air force doing all these flip flops: That doesn't mean the Air force doesn't have a lot of reports, or that UFOs aren't real, or that the reports we do have aren't genuine. It just reflects the changes in policy for reporting UFOs internally and how to handle public relations. The USAF study spanned something like 20 years. Change happens.

j.r.