UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Daylightstar]

... manufacture your own...

Hah, talking about manufacturing, you must be in the alien craft manufacturing business .....

 

[Daylightstar]

Manufacturing alien craft, having ZERO product to show.

 

[R.A.F.]

On the other hand if you can find some logical inconsistency in the essential information, then fine, that is something to consider.

Oh, you mean like NOT being able to estimate the size or distance of an unknown "object"?

I'd certainly call that "logically inconsistent".

 

[Garrison]

Garrison,

You're missing the point there. I estimated the distances years ago with a local map of the area and a set of dividers. Getting a digital readout now from the same locations doesn't do anything but make the figures a bit more precise. How I was able to guage the distances in the first place has been the issue of contention, and that hasn't changed either. The firefly issue keeps coming up and I've explained over and over why that would not be possible. But it keeps getting ignored so that people here can invoke it as an explanation. That is not responsible skepticism. Changing someone's story to suit yourself is just plain wrong.

Did you happen to read that link I posted earlier? you really should give it a look, then you might get a clue as to why your endlessly edited memory has no value as evidence.

 

[Garrison]

Tomtomkent,

Changing someone's story to suit yourself is just plain wrong. Why do you think they have court reporters? Think about it. Whether or not you can prove a case doesn't give either side the right to change witness testimony.

Seriously read that link I posted, witness evidence is changed all the time, often by accident or with the best of intentions.

 

[ufology]

Oh, you mean like NOT being able to estimate the size or distance of an unknown "object"?

I'd certainly call that "logically inconsistent".

R.A.F.

But I was able to estimate both the size and the distance. I've explained how I was able to do it and nobody has found a logical reason why it could not have been done that way. So stop misrepresenting me with false information.

 

[ufology]

Seriously read that link I posted, witness evidence is changed all the time, often by accident or with the best of intentions.

Garrison,

If there are logical inconsistencies with other evidence, then that is a different matter. You don't have the right to change someone else's story for them just to suit yourself. Whether it happens all the time or not is irrelevant.

 

[23_Tauri]

Aepervius,

Please go back and address the points I made on how the distances were arrived at. If it doesn't make sense to you then please explain why. Simply proclaiming it can't be done isn't good enough. If you can't explain how my reasoning is faulty, then you have no reason to change my story to suit yourself.

okey doke, let me try...

Your last post, in reply to carlitos' request, was here:

Carlitos:

I could easily perceive the distance just by watching it. It wasn't always outlined only against the sky. As mentioned before:

• Before the object became visible, it lit up the sky in the background which rapidly grew brighter revealing the dark sillhouette of the mountain in the foreground. This indicates the object came up from behind the mountain. In other words, you could see the glow behind the mountian getting brighter before the object became fully visible.

This bit is not in your original transcript on your website, which starts with "Just after midnight a glowing blue-white orb sprung up from behind the mountain range across the lake and bounced down the side of the mountain in three big arcs". Did you forget about the 'lighting up the mountain before you saw it' bit until very recently or is there another reason why you didn't want to share that detail with your readers?

• When the object became visible and moved over the top of the mountain it lit up the top of the mountain.

Again, not in the original telling. Could this not be a large vehicle? A truck coming down that highway that's clearly shown on the map?

• When the object moved down the mountain in the big arcs, each time it neared the treetops, you could see the treetops outlined against the side of the mountain.

Yet again, not in the website version. You've got the bouncing down the side of the mountain in three big arcs but don't mention it outlining the trees. Ok, so I'm being really picky here. Nasty aren't I? I'm sorry, but this is why people are finding your story somewhat incredible, because of these extra details we're getting later. Can you see why these details seem to be reverse-engineered into the story, to 'prove' that you could judge the distance accurately? How about you just saw some car headlights dipping in and out of the forest?

• When the object landed in the forest it slowly descended into the trees and you could see the outline of the treetops as it approached them.

Again, I wager that car or lorry headlights could well have this effect as the vehicle weaves through the woodland, even from 3km away.

• When the object went behind the tress, you could see the light filtering out from behind them as it went down behind them.

Again, sounds like a car to me.

• Because the mountain and the trees the object landed behind were clearly on the other side of the lake, we know with absolute certainty that the object had to be at least on the other side of the lake.

That's where the road is, right?

• Furthermore, because the the trees the object went down behind were at a higher elevation than the highway on the other side of the lake, the object must have landed on the east side of the highway, which establishes the distance even more precisely.

Where the road is?

I note on your website that the shiny bright thing doesn't do its figure of eight manoveres until the second sighting, when it re-appears at 2am. This is why I still hold the theory that the second object could be a much smaller object much closer to you and not the same object that you saw earlier in the trees on the other side of the lake. Could it not be possible that the first was a motor vehicle on the highway and the second a firefly doing its figure of eight mating dance?

I quote from your website account:

When it landed it went dark and stayed on the ground until about 2:00AM. Then it lit up, ascended straight up to about 300 meters, stopped instantly for about two seconds, then traced a graceful infinity symbol about 200 meters wide at a 30 degree angle to the right ( south ) of its starting point. It traced the symbol precisely in the same place four times in about 7 seconds, leaving a glowing trail of light behind, not unlike the effect of waving a glow-stick in a dark room. Then it stopped instantly and settled back into the forest in exactly the same spot it had taken off from and went dark again.

http://www.ufopages.com/Common/Control/Reframe_T1.htm?../../Reference/FS/Murphy-02a.htm

Finally, I'd just like to point out the obvious; that is it notoriously difficult to judge distance at night. Don't you drive more carefully at night? Haven't we all been on the motorway (freeway) at night, tired, and wondered "heck, I don't know how far away those red lights are, I'd best just hang back a bit to be safe". I know for one that my driving distances are much greater at night-time. But I am a bit of a crap night-time driver, it must be said.

Then again, maybe it was an ASS: alien spaceship, and not a car/truck followed later by a firefly. Me, I'm going with the razor.

 

[GeeMack]

You're confused. Burden of proof has nothing to do with the issue of some third party changing a story or intentionally leaving out parts of it to suit their own needs. Either reserve judgment or find logical reasons within the account that reveals some error.

These helpful cooperative skeptics have been trying to cooperatively help you understand that it's dishonest to shift the burden of proof like that since, when was it, like the first couple of posts you made blaming the skeptics for your failure to support your own claim?

The error has been revealed. You're trying to adjust reality to fit your fantasy. It's a failed strategy. Until you have objective support for your claim, you've got nothing.

 

[23_Tauri]

The firefly issue keeps coming up and I've explained over and over why that would not be possible.

No you haven't. Not to my satisfaction anyway. Could you be so kind as to explain why it is not possible that the object you saw at 2am (we'll call it Bright SHiny Thing #2) could not have been a firefly, particularly when the description you give in Story Version #1 on your website has the object doing exactly what fireflies do, that is...

"ascended straight up to about 300 meters, stopped instantly for about two seconds, then traced a graceful infinity symbol about 200 meters wide at a 30 degree angle to the right ( south ) of its starting point. It traced the symbol precisely in the same place four times in about 7 seconds, leaving a glowing trail of light behind, not unlike the effect of waving a glow-stick in a dark room."
(from folo's website again, same linky)

Treat the 300 metres and 200 metres as misperceptions of distance and size of the object, and what have you got there?

 

[Garrison]

Garrison,

If there are logical inconsistencies with other evidence, then that is a different matter. You don't have the right to change someone else's story for them just to suit yourself. Whether it happens all the time or not is irrelevant.

No it is totally relevant, the mechanisms by which it happens are completely applicable to yourself and indeed to all other UFO witnesses but I'm betting your need to believe will keep you from understanding that.

 

[R.A.F.]

R.A.F.

But I was able to estimate both the size and the distance. I've explained how I was able to do it and nobody has found a logical reason why it could not have been done that way.

So you see an "object", you don't know what it is, yet you know how big it is? Stop being stupid. No one here has to prove you wrong...you have to prove yourself right.

So stop misrepresenting me with false information.

Stop trying to shift the burden of proof.

How many times must you be told this before you "get it".

 

[John Albert]

No...you are making an extraordinary claim and the onus IS ON YOU TO PROVE YOURSELF CORRECT.

The onus is always on the claimant to prove his claim, regardless whether that claim be extraordinary or not. The fact that it's an extraordinary claim just makes his job that much more difficult.

Changing someone's story to suit yourself is just plain wrong.

Who's changing whose story to suit whom? You've changed your own story to correct many glaringly obvious errors, how many times now?

On the other hand if you can find some logical inconsistency in the essential information, then fine, that is something to consider.

That's exactly what has been done with your story in this thread. The skeptics have found and exposed numerous logical, mathematical, physical and integral inconsistencies.

Your first response was to flatly dismiss or vehemently deny any inconsistencies.

Then, when objective evidence was provided by the skeptics (even though, mind you, they're not the ones with the burden of proof in the first place), you've responded by retrofitting your story with new details, rewriting the alleged facts and figures, inventing ridiculous pseudoscientific explanations for physical impossibilities, derailed the discussion with nonsensical quibbles over terminology, and leveled unfounded allegations of persecution and unfair treatment.

 

[R.A.F.]

The onus is always on the claimant to prove his claim, regardless whether that claim be extraordinary or not.

That is, of course, correct.

 

[Resume]

Changing someone's story to suit yourself is just plain wrong.

Then why do you keep changing yours?

 

[RoboTimbo]

R.A.F.

But I was able to estimate both the size and the distance. I've explained how I was able to do it and nobody has found a logical reason why it could not have been done that way. So stop misrepresenting me with false information.

No, you are dishonestly misrepresenting your errors in perception and memory which have already been fully documented in this thread. You've never found a logical reason to overcome those errors so stop misrepresenting what others have done and shown you. It is simply dishonest of you to pretend to not remember what has happened in this thread, despite your fundamentally unsound memory.

 

[John Albert]

But I was able to estimate both the size and the distance.

Your altitude estimates were off by a factor of 2-15. Do you even have any idea how abysmally crappy those error margins (200-1500%) are?

And those are just your own estimates of straight altitude by the application of simple trig in an allegedly well-known setting and landscape.

Given that kind of track record, how in the world can we make any assumptions about your accuracy in determining the size and/or distance of anything? Let alone something which you have no idea what it is, which has never been proven to even exist, or to exhibit any demonstrable characteristics?

You can make all the arguments from incredulity you want, about the extraordinary "performance characteristics" of this thing, the precision of its movements, the unnaturalness of its glow, etc. but all that means nothing at all because even the few demonstrable facts you have given us in your account have been shown to be so incredibly wrong.

 

[Akhenaten]

Aepervius,

Please go back and address the points I made on how the distances were arrived at.

Why? There's no mystery to it - you made them up.

If it doesn't make sense to you then please explain why. Simply proclaiming it can't be done isn't good enough.

Yes it is.

If you can't explain how my reasoning is faulty, then you have no reason to change my story to suit yourself.

Obtaining a better match with reality is reason enough.

Or do you have some evidence that will overturn that reality?

 

[Akhenaten]

R.A.F.

You're confused. Burden of proof has nothing to do with the issue of some third party changing a story or intentionally leaving out parts of it to suit their own needs.

It seems to be you, Mr Fology, who is confused. The burden of providing evidence for your silly story is entirely upon you and lacking that evidence there's no logical reason for people not to form the obvious conclusion that it didn't happen.

Either reserve judgment or find logical reasons within the account that reveals some error.

Not that it matters, since it doesn't apply to your ever-evolving yarn, but a story can be 100% logically consistent and still be completely made up. It's what novelists do all the time, with varying degrees of success.

That your own story's logical consistency is right up there with Little Red Riding Hood is nobody's fault but yours.

 

[ufology]

... This bit is not in your original transcript on your website ...

Tauri,

Questions raised after the fact were also answered after the fact. That is an honest observation, I'll give you that, but it still doesn't affect the story. I gave an account, and then I was cross examined on the details by the skeptics here. If those answers don't make sense that's one thing. But if those answers are going to be deemed irrelevant anyway, why ask them? Just deal with what was said in the first place, "a glowing blue-white orb sprung up from behind the mountain range across the lake".

That mountain peak is almost 8 Km from where I was. So explain how I could have seen a firefly at that distance. I've tried to fit every known similar manmade or natural object or phenomena into that experience.

Now having said that, I do acknowledge that if it had not come up from behind the mountain and had just been seen against the sky above some nearby tree, then the firefly explanation might be reasonable ( if there are fireflies out there ... I've never seen any ), but who knows, it still wouldn't be impossible. Or perhaps even an aircraft or meteor much higher up might be mistaken for a strange light much closer. I'm not unreasonable.