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UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

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ufology said:
OK ... now we're getting someplace. Except that it did happen ... and the skeptic above can only deal with it by rejection of the data.

It would be fair enough to say, "In my personal opinion I simply don't believe the story". I would have no problem with that. People can choose to deny the experiences of other people all they want. But after a while it becomes obvious that continued disbelief in the existence of the UFO phenomena is unreasonable. Even other skeptics here acknowledge that UFOs are real.

j.r.
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What you talkin' 'bout Willis? Who's denying UFOs? People see crap they can't identify all the time. Gotta raygun? That'd be something.
 
Resume said:
What you talkin' 'bout Willis? Who's denying UFOs? People see crap they can't identify all the time. Gotta raygun? That'd be something.
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Humans have already invented ray guns. So a ray gun would not be convincing empirical evidence.

j.r.
 
To be fair, ufology's story is actually not extraordinary. Dude is sitting on sofa listening to Zeppelin, and thinks he sees something unusual. Heck, that's happened to me personally in one form or another. Same with Rramjet's story - stare at the sky and lots of times you see stuff move (or seem to move) in seemingly extraordinary ways. Not at all extraordinaey.

On the other hand, pretending it's aliens...
 
ufology said:
an object that could instantly deccellerate and accellerate to and from a dead stop, perform precise maneuvers, and that when it departed it travelled over 25Km in 1 ( one ) second.
j.r.
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A plausible explanation for this is: You blinked, and mistook two light sources to be the same source.

Since you freely admit you do not know the size or starting elevation of the light object, you cannot calculate its actual distance from you at any time. The object could have been 200 feet off the ground and 1/2 mile away, or it could have been 6 feet off the ground and 100 feet away. You have not shown any calculations for how you determined that the same object actually traveled 25km. It is far more likely that you saw a nearby light source, blinked at or about the same time it went out, and then noticed a second light source 25km away.

:cool:
 
Astrophotographer said:
What is just an "ordinary" ray gun or was it one of those "extraordinary" ray guns? There seems to be a difference.
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Yes, the ordinary ones are turning up all the time . . .



AlienRaygun.jpg
 
Your Daily D'ecree is relevant to my interests, and I wish to purchase a subscription.
 
ufology said:
Anecdotes are evidence, not empirical evodence, but still evidence, and in my case, it was firsthand, and therefore not an anecdotal. It's only anecdotal to the reader here who is getting it from a firsthand source.
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Anecdotal, exact same quality of support as this kind of evidence...

Rramjet said:
... but there were no geese. No geese live in the area and none migrate over the area. Never have and never will. For that matter, there is nowhere for any migrating bird to have come from but the open ocean... unless perhaps they were Emperor Penguins.
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THERE WERE NO GEESE!​

Rramjet said:
I have never claimed Cape Barren Geese were not present at Cape Otway. I claimed that where my sighting occurred there are no Cape Barren Geese, nor do they fly over in migration - it simply does not happen. Those are the facts of the matter. Full stop.
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I NEVER CLAIMED THERE WERE NO GEESE!​

You guys with your tall tales and, you know, true (by the "ufology" definition) stories are a hoot. Yes/no question for ya... Do you have anything objectively verifiable?
 
Resume said:
Physical evidence. Got any?
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I see. You want empirical evidence. You have been led to believe overconfidently that empirical evidence is the same as proof. In actuality, empirical evidence is central concept in modern science, and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses.

In my case, I observed the object directly with my senses, thus a stimulus response occured ( a scientific fact of human vision ). Unfortunately for you, we don't have the means for me to pass that experience directly along other than by language or art, which isn't exactly science, but still has rules that correspond well to various external realities. Thus in anecdotal evidence although there is often a wider margin of error than in science, meaningful data can still me gathered.

By contrast, science is often deemed by the skeptics as having zero margin of error, but in reality science isn't 100% accurate all the time, particularly with physical experiments. The results of science only conclude the probability of something happening the same way each time under a controlled set of conditions. But the fact is, things don't always happen the same way. There is always a random factor that leads to a margin of error. Then there are all the scientific frauds and scammers, a few of which I mentioned earlier. ( over 700 cases in the medical field alone over a 10 year period ). Then there are just simple mistakes and mechanical breakdowns. Science may be the best we've got most of the time, but it's far from being perfect.

So you see, just sitting back and going, "show me the evidence" is nothing more than a lazy aloof method of dismissing the phenomenon based on an overconfidenece in the scientific method. Sure, maybe you can do that with me and a few more, but over time the margin of error in human perception is not so great as to reasonably account for every incident. After several thousand reports, a composite image of the phenomenon can be created.

But if you only do the, "show me the evidence" mantra while holding your hands over your ears and closing your eyes, you will never learn to see this picture. So why not do both ... go ahead and ask for the empirical evidence, but don't use it as an excuse to dismiss the whole phenomenon. Examine the cases and when there is no other reason to dismiss them but a lack of physical evidence, stack them in the, "human perception margin of error pile" ... after a while you'll start to get the real picture. What have you got to lose?

j.r.
 
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Why is ufology attacking this straw man with such fervor? No one is dismissing "the phemenon," either lazily or aloof-ly. The phenomenon is that of man seeing or imagining or inventing things and going "OMG!! Aliens!".
 
ufology said:
I see. You want empirical evidence. You have been led to believe overconfidently that empirical evidence is the same as proof. In actuality, empirical evidence is central concept in modern science, and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses.
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Do you understand why you've just made a strawman fallacy? The scientific method uses a null hypothesis which is:

"All UFO sightings are of mundane origin"

In my case, I observed the object directly with my senses, thus a stimulus response occured ( a scientific fact of human vision ). Unfortunately for you, we don't have the means for me to pass that experience directly along other than by language or art, which isn't exactly science, but still has rules that correspond well to various external realities. Thus in anecdotal evidence although there is often a wider margin of error than in science, meaningful data can still me gathered.
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Do you hate the word "anecdote" so much that you won't use it? Your anecdeote is a claim. Do you have evidence for your claim?

By contrast, science is often deemed by the skeptics as having zero margin of error, but in reality science isn't 100% accurate all the time, particularly with physical experiments. The results of science only conclude the probability of something happening the same way each time under a controlled set of conditions. But the fact is, things don't always happen the same way. There is always a random factor that leads to a margin of error. Then there are all the scientific frauds and scammers, a few of which I mentioned earlier. ( over 700 cases in the medical field alone over a 10 year period ). Then there are just simple mistakes and mechanical breakdowns. Science may be the best we've got most of the time, but it's far from being perfect.
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You have a whole army of strawmen to command! But do you have evidence for your claim?

So you see, just sitting back and going, "show me the evidence" is nothing more than a lazy aloof method of dismissing the phenomenon based on an overconfidenece in the scientific method. Sure, maybe you can do that with me and a few more, but over time the margin of error in human perception is not so great as to reasonably account for every incident. After several thousand reports, a composite image of the phenomenon can be created.
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Strawman again. You have a never-ending supply. Do you have evidence for those thousands of claims?

But if you only do the, "show me the evidence" mantra while holding your hands over your ears and closing your eyes, you will never learn to see this picture. So why not do both ... go ahead and ask for the empirical evidence, but don't use it as an excuse to dismiss the whole phenomenon. Examine the cases and when there is no other reason to dismiss them but a lack of physical evidence, stack them in the, "human perception margin of error pile" ... after a while you'll start to get the real picture. What have you got to lose?
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Projection fallacy.

j.r.
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What do you have to lose by asking for evidence rather than gullibly believing unfalsifiable anecdotes? Why do you choose to go the pseudoscientific route?
 
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Resume said:
Yes please.
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Technically my brain would be empirical evidence because that's where the observed stimulus was recorded into my memory. So yes I "got some". As soon as Kurzweil figures out how to download memories, I'll be happy to pass them along to you.

j.r.
 
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