UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[EHocking]

They're of value,...

Not if the eyewitness changes the details of the sighting from one retelling to another...

But it certainly has value to other people.

Such as being used to add a sense of authority to a website owner's credentials as an "ufologist"?

 

[23_Tauri]

My money's still on this explanation too. But then I'm also a girl.

We're so forgiving. I guess we have to be. It's how we keep our charm.

 

[23_Tauri]

I've demonstrated no such thing as my memory being "a poor servant", only that it isn't perfect all the time. So what? Nobody's is. Scientific experiments also have a magin of error and there are probably millions of technology malfunctions every day. Scientists are also fallible even with simple things ... just look at the Hubble telescope ... the main mirror was ground incorrectly. Does that make them completely incompetent? So be fair minded about this. It isn't reasonable to blow a minor glitch in the haste of a forum post into a complete memory meltdown.

j.r.

Oh dear.

Being a mere gurl, I am inclined to accept that up until you came onto JREF you believe that your memory and assessment of the events of that fateful night in 1974 were good enough for you to relay them to a community of skeptical enquirers. You admit that your memory, like everyone's is "less than perfect" and equate its lack of perfection to the margin of error in a well-planned and executed scientific experiment in a lab, or the workings of Hubble. It is because human memory is so poor that the scientific method has been designed in the first place - because it is so much more reliable, despite small margins of error (thank you Dr Strangelove, you explain this much better than I).

It's a while since I've heard such gross understatement of the fallability of human memory, ufology. Did you not read the link from AdMan on the malleability of memory? Or the one I gave on witness perception issues? And all you will admit having read those links (I'm assuming you did, since posters here took the time to fish them out for you) is that your memory of an event nearly 40 years ago is "less than perfect".

Wow. Just wow.

In reality, your memory will be **** poor, sketchy at best. How do I know? Because anyones would be.

 

[RoboTimbo]

They're of value, just not as empirical evidence for scientific proof of alien visitation. Or you could say that because of your personal opinions on what constitutes value, that because empirical scientific proof is the only thing of value to you, that you personally don't assign it any value. But it certainly has value to other people.

p.s.

They're of value for pointing out how fallible memory is. Thank you for contributing yours to illustrate this very important point.

 

[23_Tauri]

They're of value, just not as empirical evidence for scientific proof of alien visitation. Or you could say that because of your personal opinions on what constitutes value, that because empirical scientific proof is the only thing of value to you, that you personally don't assign it any value. But it certainly has value to other people.

p.s.

What value? Your memory of your night in 1974 may have value to you as a nostalgia trip, but in terms of it being proof that there is something inexplicable in the skies above it has absolutely no value whatsoever. You say you know what you saw. You saw some lights in the sky. At the time you thought they were far out, man. But with the benefits of hindsight, maturity and a little knowledge care of JREF, can't you see that you have diddly-squat accurte information about the nature of the lights, and therefore your interpretation of them being inexplicable is built on.... nothing.

 

[godless dave]

I've demonstrated no such thing as my memory being "a poor servant", only that it isn't perfect all the time. So what? Nobody's is.

Exactly our point.

Scientific experiments also have a margin of error

A known margin that they account for.

Scientists are also fallible even with simple things ... just look at the Hubble telescope ... the main mirror was ground incorrectly. Does that make them completely incompetent?

This is off-topic - but do you really think scientists were in charge of constructing the mirrors?

 

[Jocce]

What makes ET plausible? Nothing in our knowledge of the natural or technological world rules it out.

The same can be said about blimps, squid boats and oilwell fires.

There are the reliable observations of ostensible “nuts and bolts” craft, intelligent control and associated beings and there is the is the multiple eyewitness testimony as well as radar, film, photographic and physical trace evidence.

A full load of circular reasoning. ET is a plausible explanation for UFO's because these UFO's have been observed?

So in the absence of plausible mundane explanations, we can legitimately turn to plausible alternate explanations.

There is no absence of plausible mundane explanations. Several has been presented but you still think ET visitations are more plausible than any mundane explanation. That's religious belief showing right there.

 

[Agatha]

They're of value, just not as empirical evidence for scientific proof of alien visitation. Or you could say that because of your personal opinions on what constitutes value, that because empirical scientific proof is the only thing of value to you, that you personally don't assign it any value. But it certainly has value to other people.

p.s.

If you had read what you quoted, I specifically said that anecdotes have no value as evidence [of aliens]. Personalising the argument to what value a particular poster assigns to an anecdote away from the context of the thread is neither necessary nor polite; we are talking about evidence.

You usually sign as j.r., have you changed your name?

 

[ufology]

He didn't hear it anywhere, because no such thing has ever been reported. He misremembered a report about a Mars probe as being a report about the Hubble telescope. Thereby demonstrating that his memory is as fallible as everybody else's.

The Hubble comment I made wasn't a memory error. I was just misinformed. I never knew about the Mars orbiter Metric conversion error so I couldn't have been remembering it instead. It turned out that the Hubble error was an error in a "metering rod", so maybe by the time it got to me it was interpreted to have been a "metric" conversion error. I never actually looked into it myself until the other day when I got corrected on it.

j.r.

 

[ufology]

If you had read what you quoted, I specifically said that anecdotes have no value as evidence [of aliens]. Personalising the argument to what value a particular poster assigns to an anecdote away from the context of the thread is neither necessary nor polite; we are talking about evidence.

You usually sign as j.r., have you changed your name?

ev·i·dence [évvid’ns] noun

1.sign or proof: something that gives a sign or proof of the existence or truth of something, or that helps somebody to come to a particular conclusion.​

=========

Evidence can can take many forms, not just scientific proof, so I was just trying to be more precise, which is ironic because I got sloppy and forgot to earse the p.s. for the post script I was going to put in, and it looks like I changed my initials. Anyway there was no offense intended. Please don't take it as such.​

j.r.​

 

[AdMan]

The Hubble comment I made wasn't a memory error. I was just misinformed. I never knew about the Mars orbiter Metric conversion error so I couldn't have been remembering it instead. It turned out that the Hubble error was an error in a "metering rod", so maybe by the time it got to me it was interpreted to have been a "metric" conversion error. I never actually looked into it myself until the other day when I got corrected on it.

j.r.

So you are still claiming to possess virtually infallible memory, unlike most if not all humans?

 

[GeeMack]

The Hubble comment I made wasn't a memory error. I was just misinformed. I never knew about the Mars orbiter Metric conversion error so I couldn't have been remembering it instead. It turned out that the Hubble error was an error in a "metering rod", so maybe by the time it got to me it was interpreted to have been a "metric" conversion error. I never actually looked into it myself until the other day when I got corrected on it.

Your continued ignorance of on topic issues in order to dishonestly avoid the tough questions is noted. So, exactly what steps have you taken to eliminate reasonable natural or man made explanations like peyote, mental illness, the often evidenced lousy memory, and the one which is heavily supported by your consistently dishonest arguments, compulsive or pathological lying?

 

[SOdhner]

Evidence can can take many forms, not just scientific proof,

I'm not saying an anecdote can never count as (obviously anecdotal) evidence, but in this case I would classify them as claims rather than evidence. If we treated each claim as evidence for itself it wouldn't gain us anything. That means that as soon as I say there's a rabid unicorn in my back yard you could insist that we have evidence for the existence of unicorns. Clearly that would be silly.

 

[RoboTimbo]

ev·i·dence [évvid’ns] noun

1.sign or proof: something that gives a sign or proof of the existence or truth of something, or that helps somebody to come to a particular conclusion.​

=========

Evidence can can take many forms, not just scientific proof, so I was just trying to be more precise, which is ironic because I got sloppy and forgot to earse the p.s. for the post script I was going to put in, and it looks like I changed my initials. Anyway there was no offense intended. Please don't take it as such.​

j.r.​

So, your anecdotes and the discrepancies between them help us come to the conclusion that anecdotes are not reliable. Thank you for contributing them so that we could see the truth that memories are fallible.

 

[John Albert]

At the very least, it shows a sloppy attitude to reporting what is apparently a life changing moment for you. Which in turn indicates a possible sloppy attitude to how you organise and recall your memories. Which will come as no surprise to anyone here, we already know and fully acknowledge such fallability, it seems however, you needed specific examples pointing out before admitting that no one's memory is perfect.

Alas, if only he'd joined the air force.

 

[GeeMack]

[...] I was just trying to be more precise, which is ironic because I got sloppy and forgot [...]

Okay, now that your memory has been proven fallible even over a span of just minutes, any more claims you might make about clearly remembering an incident decades ago can be reasonably taken as lies, fantasies, or the result of delusional or wishful thinking.

And in the name of being helpful and cooperative: Some caution may be prudent. Consider that people coming here to find information about extraterrestrials may begin to associate that dishonesty and detachment from reality to your alien believer club UFO Society International.

 

[John Albert]

I've demonstrated no such thing as my memory being "a poor servant", only that it isn't perfect all the time.

Exactly. Which is why anecdotes, especially ones recalled over 30-plus years, are of no value as evidence.

They're of value, just not as empirical evidence for scientific proof of alien visitation. Or you could say that because of your personal opinions on what constitutes value, that because empirical scientific proof is the only thing of value to you, that you personally don't assign it any value. But it certainly has value to other people.

They're of value for pointing out how fallible memory is. Thank you for contributing yours to illustrate this very important point.

They might also have some entertainment value.

 

[EHocking]

The Hubble comment I made wasn't a memory error. I was just misinformed. I never knew about the Mars orbiter Metric conversion error so I couldn't have been remembering it instead. It turned out that the Hubble error was an error in a "metering rod", so maybe by the time it got to me it was interpreted to have been a "metric" conversion error.

You need more practice at backpedalling.

Here's a training video.

I never actually looked into it myself until the other day when I got corrected on it.

That doesn't bode well for your website's boast that your aim is ,

"to illuminate the truth by presenting accurate, objective, and verifiable information that can be enjoyed by all our visitors. To achieve this goal, content from multiple sources is distilled into concise articles for a general audience. This methodology greatly contributes to accuracy and economy because cross checking facts and eliminating redundant data are a natural part of the distillation process. "
​

You may want to read your mission statement again...

ETA: I notice you've avoided replying to quite a number of posts pointing out the vast discrepancies in "facts" in your retelling of your UFO anecdote, preferring to divert us with OT backpedalling about Hubble.

Why is that?

 

[ufology]

That doesn't bode well for your website's boast that your aim is ,

"to illuminate the truth by presenting accurate, objective, and verifiable information that can be enjoyed by all our visitors. To achieve this goal, content from multiple sources is distilled into concise articles for a general audience. This methodology greatly contributes to accuracy and economy because cross checking facts and eliminating redundant data are a natural part of the distillation process. "
​

You may want to read your mission statement again...

I did my cross checks for the report on my website. I consulted maps and looked up elevations and distances. Here I'm just having what I thought was more of an informal discussion, and didn't expect to be called on every detail of what I say. With regard to my website, I stand by the aim above as much as is practicable given the information at hand. My website is pretty reserved compared to many and I do my best to keep things in their proper context. If you see any errors or want to share your comments, I certainly welcome them.

j.r.

 

[Brainache]

I did my cross checks for the report on my website. I consulted maps and looked up elevations and distances. Here I'm just having what I thought was more of an informal discussion, and didn't expect to be called on every detail of what I say. With regard to my website, I stand by the aim above as much as is practicable given the information at hand. My website is pretty reserved compared to many and I do my best to keep things in their proper context. If you see any errors or want to share your comments, I certainly welcome them.

j.r.

So, Ufology did you see my post about fireworks? How did you rule out that plausible mundane explanation for what you saw?