Tomtomkent,
If you just want to weigh in on the issue that there is no scientifically valid and available physical evidence
Like the thread is about!
that proves Earth has been host to UFOs ( alien craft ).
No, I was talking about establishing what UFOs are. I am no more concerned with alien craft than any other explanation, and considerably less concerned than many that have evidence. Why on earth do you persist on trying to suggest that UFOs must be alien? WHY? If you mean alien craft, say alien craft. If you mean UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT say UFO.
You'll get no argument from me.
Or evidence it seems.
The only hard evidence I've heard about comes from the same places as the sighting reports themselves ... books, documents. websites etc.
And given the quality of books and websites you have pointed people towards, and your misunderstanding of documentary evidence, or evidence in general, that is going to be a sum total of "none".
The actual physical material ( if such exists ) has not been made available for public inspection.
Wrong, it has not been shown to exist. It is only ASSUMED to exist by people who mistake "secret" for "alien".
Videos, photos ... even radar, doesn't really prove anything.
They can prove a lot. Not a lot of it useful, and certainly not what ufologists claim most of the time. Most often it proves there is no suitable grounds to assume "alien" or anything other than "unidentified". But to claim radar, by which I assume you mean Air Traffic Control records, can prove a lot of useful information. Don't dismiss it because it can't prove what you want to believe.
I'm not even sure given what we can now create ourselves, that anything short of a mother ship piloted by aliens could serve as proof anyway.
No, material evidence to prove a nonterristrial nature would do.
That is why the best evidence from my perspective are the eyewitnesses from early accounts, before our own technology became so advanced.
And in that you are entirely wrong. Eye witness accounts are poor evidence. Eye witness accounts that are more likely to mistake mundane phenomona that had yet to be understood for something more exotic are not more useful. Why not go find the links explaining what good evidence actually is, or stop pretending you have any interest in evidence at all.
There are still things our craft can't do ( so far as we know ), like do instant high speed accelleration, decelleration, or changes of direction. So I supppose that if we could get some kind of high quality telemetry on such an object, perhaps it would be good solid evidence. The only problem with that is that civilians don't have ready access to the kind of equipment necessary to do the job.
So despite Radar not PROVING anything, it would be good evidence? And my word, it is controlled by trained staff working for an airport? What shocking scandalous good sense!
I imagine Space Command does, but good luck getting in there. Author Howard Blum claims to have had an inside source who confirmed radar tracking of UFOs, but again these unnamed sources don't really constitute scientific evidence either.
No, it is dreadful unsubstantiated evidence. For exactly the same reason your story is.
I the end, I realize that I am in an unenviable position with respect to the hard evidence for my belief. But that doesn't change the truth of it
Now "truth" is a sticky subject. Which version of your story are we meant to accept as true? Which changes are "true"? If something needs to be corrected, it can not have been true. By changing the story so often you are making it untrue.
and I didn't come here to defend anyway.
And yet you do. Why bother to keep talking about it if you aren't defending it?
I just ended up in that position during discussion.
So you don't come here to defend your story. You just come here then make the decision to defend it? Hmmmm....
What I came here for was to try to network with skeptics so that I could present a constructively skeptical view of some of the issues on my website. If anything, I thought the skeptics would be glad to help in that regard.
They are. That is why people come here to offer critique. You just stubbornly refuse to listen each time they do so. So what exactly is the point of asking for the sceptical view if you don't intend to listen and argue point blank against the first principles of evidence, the null, and the sceientific method?
Why do you think people bother to correct your misunderstandings if they are not glad to help? Do you think they waste hours here GRUDGINGLY?
If you want their view, listen. If you want to understand the concepts go look into the Scientific Method and Evidence. The sources have been posted here several times. (And don't ask me to go find the link again, I did that already. If you "missed" it, why expect somebody else to trawl through finding it, other than your own laziness?)
