UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[RoboTimbo]

That's where you make the unfounded leap that science is always right and the margin of error in human perception and recall is 100%

Strawman fallacy

... In actual fact, as was pointed out above, science has its share of failings and is not always reliable. Still, certain things like the workings of human vision and recall are well established scientific facts. That's how people are able to get things like driver's licenses, by taking visual, memory and skill tests.

It's also how people get into collisions. No joke.

Now I realize the above opens up the floor to bad driver jokes, but seriously, think of all the judgements based on observation and recall that are made reliably on a daily basis ... literally thosands of them. In real life, our senses provide a vast amount of useful and reliable data. Add to that, that not only are humans amazing processors of sensory data, we are also intelligent.

You are the easiest person to fool.

If we had to prove everything we experience scientifically every time we need to make a decision, we'd never get anything done. So why don't we do that? Because we are intelligent enough to figure our way through life without doing that, and most of the time we do a pretty good job.

If we believed everything we were told about things that aren't true, we'd never get anything done. We'd be pseudoscientists.

Humans have accomplished a lot, we're amazing creatures, just ask any skeptic who has had to debunk alien pyramid builder mythology. When it comes to that you'll get no argument. So why in an era of enlightenment, where we're more educated than ever before, when it comes to UFOs, do humans suddenly go from being amazing primitives, to modern frail incompetent, idiots who are incapable of telling the difference between a bug on a window and an unknown form of flying craft? The answer is obvious ... it's the skeptical bias. If you set that bias aside for a moment, and just be fair minded and logical, you'd see that there is value in anecdotal eveidence.

j.r.

Why do you not believe the alien pyramid builder stories? Also, projection fallacy concerning your PseudoAlien bias. Also, anecdotes are claims for which you need evidence.

 

[Akhenaten]

No. For me, I have my own firsthand experience, which falls outside the definiton of anecdotal:

If you set that bias aside for a moment, and just be fair minded and logical, you'd see that there is value in anecdotal eveidence.

In other words, your flying saucer story is evidence rather than an anecdote because you were its originator but even if it was an anecdote then it would still be evidence.

And you want to accuse the poor bloody sceptics of being biased???

If I was one of them I'd be highly offended at your rampant potkettleblackness, but as I'm not I'll content myself with pointing out that you can't even spell evidence, much less define it, and much, much, much less produce any of it.

 

[Marduk]

Humans have accomplished a lot, we're amazing creatures, just ask any skeptic who has had to debunk alien pyramid builder mythology. When it comes to that you'll get no argument. So why in an era of enlightenment, where we're more educated than ever before, when it comes to UFOs, do humans suddenly go from being amazing primitives, to modern frail incompetent, idiots who are incapable of telling the difference between a bug on a window and an unknown form of flying craft? The answer is obvious ... it's the skeptical bias. If you set that bias aside for a moment, and just be fair minded and logical, you'd see that there is value in anecdotal eveidence.

j.r.

its because in the case of the pyramids we have empirical evidence, can you see why therefore the explanations there are scientific ?

in your case you just have the anecdote, which fair enough, is all the proof you need, I can easily accept that you saw what you think you saw, but without something quantifiable to measure, I could never believe that what you saw is extra terrestrial
and it follows, that you may be totally correct in thinking that you did see aliens, but no one else will ever be able to accept that unless they have an already existing bias to believe all UFO reports are aliens, and that is pseudoscience my friend, when someone starts with a belief and then finds evidence to support it. So you may be the only person who's ever seen an alien ship, but youre buried amongst thousands of misidentifications and deliberate hoaxes and people like Ramjet who lie about it for personal gain

so heres my question
what do you think you'd believe if you'd not had your experience, I see two possible answers
1. youd still believe some UFO reports were aliens
2. you wouldnt believe some UFO reports were aliens
which is it ?

 

[ufology]

In other words, your flying saucer story is evidence rather than an anecdote because you were its originator but even if it was an anecdote then it would still be evidence.

And you want to accuse the poor bloody sceptics of being biased???

If I was one of them I'd be highly offended at your rampant potkettleblackness, but as I'm not I'll content myself with pointing out that you can't even spell evidence, much less define it, and much, much, much less produce any of it.

I never claimed to be unbiased, just fair minded and logical and willing to change my views provided I'm given good enough reasons. Telling me I didn't see what I saw isn't a good enough reason. Providing no reasonable explanation for what I saw is not a reason. Saying eveyone else who saw some kind of alien craft are mistaken or delusional is not a fair minded logical explanation for all sightings.

j.r.

 

[GeeMack]

Saying eveyone else who saw some kind of alien craft are mistaken or delusional is not a fair minded logical explanation for all sightings.

And nobody is saying that, so I'm sure you'd agree that suggesting so is a lie.

 

[carlitos]

I never claimed to be unbiased, just fair minded

So, not unbiased^dict, but fair minded? This reads very much like "there were no geese; i never said there were no geese." Please tell me we don't have to explain the definition of "unbiased" to you?



Anyway, about your anecdote - If I told you that, oh, 20 years ago, I was listening to Mony Mony from Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" album on cassette, and oops that song was on the cassette single only; anyway, I looked out the window and saw a poltergeist........

Would that be evidence for poltergeists? Would that be data?

 

[RoboTimbo]

I never claimed to be unbiased, just fair minded and logical and willing to change my views provided I'm given good enough reasons. Telling me I didn't see what I saw isn't a good enough reason. Providing no reasonable explanation for what I saw is not a reason. Saying eveyone else who saw some kind of alien craft are mistaken or delusional is not a fair minded logical explanation for all sightings.

j.r.

What is a fair minded logical explanation for all sightings?

 

[Resume]

That's where you make the unfounded leap that science is always right and the margin of error in human perception and recall is 100% ... In actual fact, as was pointed out above, science has its share of failings and is not always reliable. Still, certain things like the workings of human vision and recall are well established scientific facts. That's how people are able to get things like driver's licenses, by taking visual, memory and skill tests.

Now I realize the above opens up the floor to bad driver jokes, but seriously, think of all the judgements based on observation and recall that are made reliably on a daily basis ... literally thosands of them. In real life, our senses provide a vast amount of useful and reliable data. Add to that, that not only are humans amazing processors of sensory data, we are also intelligent.

If we had to prove everything we experience scientifically every time we need to make a decision, we'd never get anything done. So why don't we do that? Because we are intelligent enough to figure our way through life without doing that, and most of the time we do a pretty good job.

Humans have accomplished a lot, we're amazing creatures, just ask any skeptic who has had to debunk alien pyramid builder mythology. When it comes to that you'll get no argument. So why in an era of enlightenment, where we're more educated than ever before, when it comes to UFOs, do humans suddenly go from being amazing primitives, to modern frail incompetent, idiots who are incapable of telling the difference between a bug on a window and an unknown form of flying craft? The answer is obvious ... it's the skeptical bias. If you set that bias aside for a moment, and just be fair minded and logical, you'd see that there is value in anecdotal eveidence.

j.r.

What the hell are you talking about? Your anecdote is an unverified, uncorroborated story on which you can base exactly nothing.

Got some alien DNA?

 

[Akhenaten]

Telling me I didn't see what I saw isn't a good enough reason.

I have no idea what you saw, so I'm in no position to tell you that you didn't see it. I'll bet you a million silver deben it wasn't an alien flying saucer though.

If only you had some evidence instead of just an anecdote you could build yourself a nice villa in Punt. Bummer.

Providing no reasonable explanation for what I saw is not a reason.

That doesn't even make any sense, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you mean that because I can't provide a reasonable explanation for what you saw then I can't dismiss your claim.

You are, as ever, completely wrong. Given that you're the one who's willing to resort to inventing alien technologies to account for a lack of sonic booms emanating from ultrasonic something-or-others you look a bit silly telling me that I'm being unreasonable.


Not to mention the good old burden of evidence, which is on you, not me. You don't see me performing my blimpology without providing evidence of blimps, do you?

Saying eveyone else who saw some kind of alien craft are mistaken or delusional is not a fair minded logical explanation for all sightings.

Lucky I didn't say that then, isn't it?

 

[GeeMack]

Humans have accomplished a lot, we're amazing creatures, just ask any skeptic who has had to debunk alien pyramid builder mythology. When it comes to that you'll get no argument. So why in an era of enlightenment, where we're more educated than ever before, when it comes to UFOs, do humans suddenly go from being amazing primitives, to modern frail incompetent, idiots who are incapable of telling the difference between a bug on a window and an unknown form of flying craft? The answer is obvious ... it's the skeptical bias. If you set that bias aside for a moment, and just be fair minded and logical, you'd see that there is value in anecdotal eveidence.

You've been trying that dishonest argument blaming the skeptics for your own failure since nearly your first posts here. And you've been busted pretty much every time. How many more times do you think you'll need to try it before it works?

 

[ufology]

So you may be the only person who's ever seen an alien ship, but youre buried amongst thousands of misidentifications and deliberate hoaxes and people like Ramjet who lie about it for personal gain

so heres my question what do you think you'd believe if you'd not had your experience, I see two possible answers

1. youd still believe some UFO reports were aliens
2. you wouldnt believe some UFO reports were aliens

which is it ?

Let me clarify without you getting all accusatory. The reason I believe some other UFO reports represent alien craft, and by that I mean alien from our civilization, but not necesarily extraterrestrial ( but probably ), is because of my own firsthand experience. It simply would be too self-centered and self-serving of me given the thousands of other sightings out there to think that mine is the only legitimate one.

Now what if I'd never seen one myself? I've talked with other witnesses including close family members whom I trusted who had seen one, and I'd read numerous reports that I don't believe are faked and don't seem to have any other explanation before ever having had my own sighting, and came to the conclusion then, that it's reasonable to classify some UFOs as alien craft, and probably extraterrestrial. But that isn't the same as knowing, or believing and only my own sighting has given me that.

Now here's where my own real personal bias kicks in. There are a lot of kinds of sightings and experiences out there. As soon as I start hearing ones that are even weirder than mine, I start to go into my own "disbelief mode". In other words, I've heard many accounts of noctural lights in the distance. Most of them were probably some kind of manmade object. Only a very few included the instant acceleration and deceleration and changes in direction that the object I saw exhibited. So when I heard those stories ( of the more anomalous objects ), I could nod my head and agree that they had probably also seen some kind of anomalous object. But when we kick it up a notch to reports of structured craft and actual aliens and abductions ... I only interviewed three people from two cases who were believable.

For reports from other ufologists, I start needing reports that include miltary, police, pilots, radar, corroborating witnesses, reputable authors and so on before I take it seriously. Otherwise it just gets filed in that part of ufology culture that is mushed in with entertainment and personal interest.

j.r.

 

[carlitos]

"believable" ≠ data

 

[xjx388]

I saw a strange light in the sky yesterday. It turned out to be an unknown type of aircraft which landed in my backyard. A humanoid figure that looked like a typical "grey" alien exited the craft and took a sample of my pool water. Then it re-entered the craft and the craft left at a high rate of speed.

Boom! There's my story, so aliens must exist.

Or I could be lying. Or it could have been a dream. Or I could be crazy. Or it could have really happened.

How could I prove to you that it really happened?

 

[Marduk]

Let me clarify without you getting all accusatory. The reason I believe some other UFO reports represent alien craft, and by that I mean alien from our civilization, but not necesarily extraterrestrial ( but probably ), is because of my own firsthand experience. It simply would be too self-centered and self-serving of me given the thousands of other sightings out there to think that mine is the only legitimate one.

Now what if I'd never seen one myself? I've talked with other witnesses including close family members whom I trusted who had seen one, and I'd read numerous reports that I don't believe are faked and don't seem to have any other explanation before ever having had my own sighting, and came to the conclusion then, that it's reasonable to classify some UFOs as alien craft, and probably extraterrestrial. But that isn't the same as knowing, or believing and only my own sighting has given me that.

Now here's where my own real personal bias kicks in. There are a lot of kinds of sightings and experiences out there. As soon as I start hearing ones that are even weirder than mine, I start to go into my own "disbelief mode". In other words, I've heard many accounts of noctural lights in the distance. Most of them were probably some kind of manmade object. Only a very few included the instant acceleration and deceleration and changes in direction that the object I saw exhibited. So when I heard those stories ( of the more anomalous objects ), I could nod my head and agree that they had probably also seen some kind of anomalous object. But when we kick it up a notch to reports of structured craft and actual aliens and abductions ... I only interviewed three people from two cases who were believable.

For reports from other ufologists, I start needing reports that include miltary, police, pilots, radar, corroborating witnesses, reputable authors and so on before I take it seriously. Otherwise it just gets filed in that part of ufology culture that is mushed in with entertainment and personal interest.

j.r.

so you are saying that you would have a bias for believing that some UFOs are alien craft even if you hadnt had a personal experience

Ufology, having a belief based bias before you see any evidence is pseudoscience
you are therefore incapable of carrying out any scientific research at all, so your claims that, thats what you want to do are either self deluded, or simply dishonest.
You have to start with just investigating the claims, no bias, no belief, just straight reporting, the second you allow your preconceptions into the mix, youre done

 

[Akhenaten]

I saw a strange light in the sky yesterday. It turned out to be an unknown type of aircraft which landed in my backyard. A humanoid figure that looked like a typical "grey" alien exited the craft and took a sample of my pool water. Then it re-entered the craft and the craft left at a high rate of speed.

Boom! There's my story, so aliens must exist.

Or I could be lying. Or it could have been a dream. Or I could be crazy. Or it could have really happened.

How could I prove to you that it really happened?

Well, as long as you promise that no geese have ever flown over your backyard, that the Sun was on the opposite side of the world and that you're a draftsman, I have no problem in believing your story.

The "Boom!" you describe seems to indicate that your aliens didn't have anti-gravity technology, so they can't have been Pleiadians.

 

[ufology]

What the hell are you talking about? Your anecdote is an unverified, uncorroborated story on which you can base exactly nothing.

Got some alien DNA?

It is possible that I could give a lab 50 samples of DNA and that something would happen in the analysis to give one of them an unknown reading ... expecially if it were a hair sample. So DNA proves nothing, metal fragment samples prove nothing, photos prove nothing, video proves nothing, only if the aliens grant someone a license to sell mothership cruises could I provide material evidence ... but so what? ... the margins of error in anecdotal evidence are not 100%, and given the number sightings, it is reasonable to accept that UFOs are, as was established about 50 years ago, structured craft of unknown origin.

j.r.

 

[Marduk]

It is possible that I could give a lab 50 samples of DNA and that something would happen in the analysis to give one of them an unknown reading ... expecially if it were a hair sample. So DNA proves nothing, metal fragment samples prove nothing, photos prove nothing, video proves nothing, only if the aliens grant someone a license to sell mothership cruises could I provide material evidence ... but so what? ... the margins of error in anecdotal evidence are not 100%, and given the number sightings, it is reasonable to accept that UFOs are, as was established about 50 years ago, structured craft of unknown origin.

j.r.

here he goes, start listing the things which usually are used as scientific evidence and dismiss them because you don't have any
that way, when you finally get some scientific evidence you can reverse your opinion and claim you have proof

jesus ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ christ, this guy is wasting not just our time, but also his own


I propose we create a scale of delusion for people like Ufology
but I'll start another thread

 

[GeeMack]

It is possible that I could give a lab 50 samples of DNA and that something would happen in the analysis to give one of them an unknown reading ... expecially if it were a hair sample. So DNA proves nothing, metal fragment samples prove nothing, photos prove nothing, video proves nothing, only if the aliens grant someone a license to sell mothership cruises could I provide material evidence ... but so what? ... the margins of error in anecdotal evidence are not 100%, and given the number sightings, it is reasonable to accept that UFOs are, as was established about 50 years ago, structured craft of unknown origin.

That is, of course, a completely ludicrous claim. UFOs are unidentified. That's what the "U" in UFO means. It is not only unreasonable but the antithesis of skepticism and critical thinking "to accept that UFOs are structured craft of unknown origin".

Oh, and your dishonest weaseling away from the notion that objective evidence might be a good start at "illuminating the truth" is noted.

ETA: Marduk, you beat me by seconds...

here he goes, start listing the things which usually are used as scientific evidence and dismiss them because you don't have any that way, when you finally get some scientific evidence you can reverse your opinion and claim you have proof

 

[carlitos]

It is possible that I could give a lab 50 samples of DNA and that something would happen in the analysis to give one of them an unknown reading ... expecially if it were a hair sample.

Yes. That's possible.

So DNA proves nothing

No. Complete non-sequitur. You need to take a logic course, I think.

....., metal fragment samples prove nothing, photos prove nothing, video proves nothing, only if the aliens grant someone a license to sell mothership cruises could I provide material evidence ... but so what? ... the margins of error in anecdotal evidence are not 100%, and given the number sightings, it is reasonable to accept that UFOs are, as was established about 50 years ago, structured craft of unknown origin.

j.r.

But you don't have metal fragments, DNA, Video, Photos, mothership cruise salesman license. You have a story. An anecdote. And you are admittedly predisposed to believe that these stories = aliens. Why did you keep saying "data" earlier?

 

[Akhenaten]

It is possible that I could give a lab 50 samples of DNA and that something would happen in the analysis to give one of them an unknown reading ... expecially if it were a hair sample.

"Unknown" ≠ "OMG . . . aliens!" (unless one is a ufailogist)

So DNA proves nothing, metal fragment samples prove nothing, photos prove nothing, video proves nothing . . .

All of those things are evidence. (stop trying to slip the word "proof" in there, by the way)

Anecdotes are not.

. . . only if the aliens grant someone a license to sell mothership cruises could I provide material evidence ...

Drivel.

but so what? ...

Well, duh. So then you'd have some evidence.

. . . the margins of error in anecdotal evidence are not 100% . . .

They range between 0% erroneous (being generous) and 100% erroneous and nobody knows which ones are which, including you. This is why they have no value as evidence.

. . . and given the number sightings, it is reasonable to accept that UFOs are, as was established about 50 years ago, structured craft of unknown origin.

No, it's not reasonable at all. It's a fantasy sustained solely by the predisposition of ufailogists to believe in stuff for no apparent reason while more prudent people (blimpologists, for instance) prefer to follow the evidence.