UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Marduk]

Marduk,

I've never changed my story from the first day that the object had come up from behind the mountain. .

you've changed it repeatedly, are you having more memory issues now ?

You cannot justify changing my story to suit your hypothesis. Otherwise you are just fabricating your own evidence to suit yourself ... hardly critical thinking. .

I haven't changed your story at any point, you are simply a liar to say otherwise, you see that little right facing arrow which sits to the right hand side of someones quote. Click on it, then you'll know who's changing stories here

As for being able to recall old memories, once memories have become part of long term memory they can be retained for a lifetime. It isn't good enough to say that because memory can fail that it has failed. And because one or two irrelevant details of an incident don't match perfectly doesn't mean the whole memory is false. As a critical thinker you should already know these things.

As a critical thinker I rely on clinical studies, not your faulty memory and heavily biased opinion, face the truth now, youre just trolling, no one here believes you, the vast majority think you have invented the whole incident to inflate your own sense of self importance, and at the end of the day, you are a stereotypical ufo nut who jumps to unwarranted conclusions because you don't have the self discipline to realise that you have wasted everybodies time here including your own.

You've also destroyed any hope of ever being taken seriously with your clearly dishonest approach to something you were trying to push as a real science, this also means that your website and any other associated works you attempt in the same field in future will be regarded by rational people for exactly what they are, worthless

your very presence here has destroyed all your ambitions, you are the only one who can't see that, even Rramjet doesn't agree with you and that is really telling. I no longer have any respect for you, don't bother to respond to any more of my posts, I certainly will be avoiding anything in future associated with Joseph "firefly" Murphy

 

[GeeMack]

I've never changed my story from the first day that the object had come up from behind the mountain.

The last several hundred posts in this thread stand as a recorded testament to the falseness of that statement.

You cannot justify changing my story to suit your hypothesis.

The story was changed by you. When skeptics consider alternative explanations, it is just speculation. That's how critical thinking works. Cooperative helpful skeptics do that. You didn't have to ask for our help.

Otherwise you are just fabricating your own evidence to suit yourself ... hardly critical thinking. As for being able to recall old memories, once memories have become part of long term memory they can be retained for a lifetime. It isn't good enough to say that because memory can fail that it has failed. And because one or two irrelevant details of an incident don't match perfectly doesn't mean the whole memory is false. As a critical thinker you should already know these things.

There have been too many changes in the tale to accept that your alleged memories are an accurate reflection of a real experience. Again, this thread will continue to stand as a record of that.

 

[AdMan]

As for being able to recall old memories, once memories have become part of long term memory they can be retained for a lifetime. It isn't good enough to say that because memory can fail that it has failed.

Wow. It's as if you've simply ignored or failed to read or understand everything that's been posted or linked to in this thread on how human memory is fallible. The way your story has changed even in this very thread is a perfect example.

You are being either deliberately dishonest or amazingly slow (and I don't think the latter is the case) in not admitting your memory (everyone's memory) sucks.

 

[AdMan]

You still don't get that a word origin isn't the same as a word definition and that we're talking about the word UFO not the word "unidentified". Eventually, some day, when you figure that out, your comments will have some relevance.

Why are you putting down posters on this board because we don't accept your redefinitions, when even UFO proponents on a pro-UFO forum are calling you a potential troll because you keep trying to push your illogical arguments and redefinitions down their throats as well?

Have you ever considered that it's you who may be wrong?

 

[Chuck Guiteau]

At first I didn’t pay much attention to your personal eyewitness account, ufology. Inasmuch as you had already confessed that you had no empirical evidence to justify your position, admitted that “ufology” was not a science, and were even unable to definitively separate it as a belief system from the more mundane religions, bothering with what was obviously just another anecdotal sighting seemed to serve no real purpose.

But you have belabored us with your defense of this incident for several pages now and it is worth noting that, if true, it points more to your superhuman abilities as an observer than anything else.
I am not engaging in hyperbole here. If the incident is as you claim, then you are possessed with what could only be described as superhuman powers of observation.

An experienced military reconnaissance scout, under optimal conditions, should be able to determine the type, model, and often make, of a large vehicle (say a tank, or self propelled howitzer) at 1000 meters. If the distance is known, and a fixed object is available, he can also determine an approximate speed.
At 1500 meters he should be able to recognize the type of vehicle, but most likely not the make.
At distances beyond 2000 meters he needs binoculars.
According to your statements, you were able to determine, under less than optimal conditions, the altitude, speed and, most importantly, approximate size of an object at a distance of three miles. That’s about 4800 meters, well over twice the distance a normal person would be able to make out any detail.
Are you claiming that your visual acuity exceeds that of a Carlos Hathcock or Chuck Yeager? If not, then this a glaring inconsistency in the very piece of “evidence” that you claim converted you to the belief system, isn’t it?

 

[Tomtomkent]

Marduk,

I've never changed my story from the first day that the object had come up from behind the mountain. You cannot justify changing my story to suit your hypothesis. Otherwise you are just fabricating your own evidence to suit yourself ... hardly critical thinking. As for being able to recall old memories, once memories have become part of long term memory they can be retained for a lifetime. It isn't good enough to say that because memory can fail that it has failed. And because one or two irrelevant details of an incident don't match perfectly doesn't mean the whole memory is false. As a critical thinker you should already know these things.

If the story didn't change why is there such a vast difference between revised figures? Why were figures revised? Those are changes. You keep changing the claim, and we havea concise history of the changes in these posts.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Why are you putting down posters on this board because we don't accept your redefinitions, when even UFO proponents on a pro-UFO forum are calling you a potential troll because you keep trying to push your illogical arguments and redefinitions down their throats as well?

Have you ever considered that it's you who may be wrong?

To fight alone in attempting to tell everyone else what the definition of a word must be is an interesting approach to say the least.


I see the Kaikoura sightings are getting a run over there. My uncle was one of the air trafic controllers on radar during the attempted alien invasion of Kiwi land.

 

[ufology]

Wow. It's as if you've simply ignored or failed to read or understand everything that's been posted or linked to in this thread on how human memory is fallible. The way your story has changed even in this very thread is a perfect example.

You are being either deliberately dishonest or amazingly slow (and I don't think the latter is the case) in not admitting your memory (everyone's memory) sucks.

Same to you. I've posted couterpoints like:

"The storage in sensory memory and short-term memory generally have a strictly limited capacity and duration, which means that information is available only for a certain period of time, but is not retained indefinitely. By contrast, long-term memory can store much larger quantities of information for potentially unlimited duration (sometimes a whole life span). Its capacity is immeasurably large." ( Wikipedia )

Again just because memory can fail doesn't mean is has failed. Some things can be remembered very accurately and last a lifetime. Many people know this to be true from their own memories of things from their childhoods. Pet's, people, places many things. You don't have to repeat them every day either. I haven't used my phone number from back then and I still remember it. I haven't lived in my childhood home since before we even moved to BC and still remeber the address. You give human experience and ability way too little credit. If we were all as bad as you think, we would have all died off with the Neanderthals.

And you misrepresent me when you say my story has changed. It hasn't "changed" at all. Using tools like Google Earth to measure distances more accurately, and fixing obvious editing mistakes isn't "changing the story". It's making sure it's accurate. But you would sooner misrepresent me than be fair, so what else is new?

 

[23_Tauri]

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.

folo, Did you even read what I wrote yesterday evening? I referred to the object you saw coming over the top of the mountain SEVEN times in last post and not once did I suggest that it was a firefly.

I'll help you out. This is what I suggested:

Bright Shiny Thing #1 coming down the mountain? Could be a mechanical conveyance of Earthly, not extra-terrestrial, origin.

Bright Shiny Thing #2 seen later (2am in your original story) doing figure of eights with no reference to trees (and therefore definitely no way of discerning distance from object), could be a firefly.

With respect folo, are your reading skills really this bad? Go back, and see where I make a distinction between the first sighting and the second sighting. It would appear that even though this was your UFO experience, you are incapable of comprehending that there were two separate events during the night, followed by a third separate event in the early morning. And yet we can see this.

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

As was the case with Sighting of Bright Shiny Thing #2. Which has been suggested many times by many posters that it could be a firefly! Glad you finally agree with us.

( if there are fireflies out there ... I've never seen any ),

Ah, but maybe you have. And if you haven't, then how come you're so sure that you haven't? Perhaps you have and didn't recognise them as fireflies because you'd never seen them before. Go figure, my friend.

but who knows, it still wouldn't be impossible.

Absolutely. And probably more possible than an ASS (alien spaceship)

Or perhaps even an aircraft or meteor much higher up might be mistaken for a strange light much closer. I'm not unreasonable.

Possible that sighting of Bright Shiny Thing #1 could have been either of these things, but we don't have sufficient information to make a judgement call on it.

 

[Akhenaten]

Again just because memory can fail doesn't mean is has failed.

Also again, without independent corroboration there's no way of knowing whether it's failed or not.

You know this, and yet choose to ignore it.

What are we to make of that?

Some things can be remembered very accurately and last a lifetime.

And some can't. You don't know which is which.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Again just because memory can fail doesn't mean is has failed. Some things can be remembered very accurately and last a lifetime. Many people know this to be true from their own memories of things from their childhoods. Pet's, people, places many things. You don't have to repeat them every day either. I haven't used my phone number from back then and I still remember it. I haven't lived in my childhood home since before we even moved to BC and still remeber the address. You give human experience and ability way too little credit. If we were all as bad as you think, we would have all died off with the Neanderthals.

Of course it doesn't mean it has failed because it can, but it does mean that we should be very sceptical about memories and require confirmation from other peoples' accounts and physical evidence. You however seem to have an unjustified confidence in your memory powers, as you do for your powers of perception. The examples of memories that you give above are vague or trivial, like phone numbers. Our abilities to remember past events are faulty, with many psychological experiments demonstrating how it can be wrong in dramatic ways.

I once read about a lecturer who asked students to write down exactly where they were when they heard the news about the September 11 attacks. He did this within days of the event and collected the written responses. Some months later he again asked the students the same question about where they were. The replies were very different but adamant when queried. The students were reportedly very surprised to compare their then current memory with the fresh written account.

I could have misremembered important details here, perhaps someone else has heard of this and can point us to the source. Anyway, pick up any first year psychology text and you will be hit with many such examples of how our memory and perception can and do go wrong.

 

[Akhenaten]

And you misrepresent me when you say my story has changed. It hasn't "changed" at all. Using tools like Google Earth to measure distances more accurately, and fixing obvious editing mistakes isn't "changing the story". It's making sure it's accurate.

Your story hasn't changed at all except for the bits you've changed???

Get real, Mr Logy.

But you would sooner misrepresent me than be fair, so what else is new?

Your claims of being misrepresented every time someone points out how transparently unbelievable your story is and the duplicity of your attempts to redefine virtually the entire English language certainly aren't new.

 

[wollery]

Marduk,

Oh sure ... I agree. I've had all kinds of weird experiences, which is why I don't write them off when other people say they've had them. The thing is, I didn't come here to talk about them and I think we've done my sighting to death now. So how about some opinions on this paper written by Astrophysicist Massimo Teodorani, Ph.D.

http://www.zeitlin.net/OpenSETI/Docs/EuroSETI2002_OSI.htm

Note: Offhanded dismissal and wise cracks will be ignored.

It's a conference proceedings paper (not refereed, as you can tell from the poor English and spelling, no offence to the author, his English is way better than my Italian), outlining a potential method for detecting vehicles and artifacts of extraterrestrial origin, should they exist, based on a hypothetical scenario drawn from a highly speculative study of the possible spread of technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations across the Galaxy.

It then goes on to talk about the Hessdalen Lights, which doesn't really have anything to do with the hypothetical search outlined in the first part.

There's nothing specifically wrong with the paper, but I don't see how it supports or adds anything to your contentions, unless you think that the idea that an astrophysicist discussing the potential for extraterrestrial visitation and possible methods for detecting it is somehow unusual or gives any weight to your arguments.

 

[edge]

Here's something that is familiar and can be dismissed, man made on the bottom.
Then there's a picture of an alien. So rare that they could be, but not.
Then there’s a place where it happens on a regular basis.
http://www.ufolab.info/DNA-Lights-9.htm
Picture of this to the right.
Now these might be geological events, lights caused by grinding quartz from plates shifting under ground.
But when you see one, just one conveyance you’ll know what I know, that there is more to it than skeptics are willing to believe and that’s understandable.
One million skeptics would not get me to believe otherwise.
As if a person can’t tell with their own eyes and ears and other senses what they are looking at especially when it is close enough to raise the hair all over your body.
I read your link ufology and it’s about time they thought differently.
What I could never understand about SETI is the fact that they are listening with radio.
As if an advance technology would use such a primitive method for communication, that’s just silly.
From the linky:

These lights, at times, appear to come from inside of the mountains to

our east approximately 25-28 miles from our house. At times, these

lights 'sit' on the mountains. Sometimes these lights hang

or hover about the mountain tops. Sometimes the lights just 'appear'

above the mountains and move in different directions.

 

[edge]

I find it hilarious that skeptics will argue against the religious about us being the crown of creation, or in other words we are not alone in the universe but can’t wrap their heads around the fact that others that are out there can come here with millions of years of advanced technology, when all you have to do is look at ourselves and understand we went from horse drawn carriages in a 100 years to being able to go to anywhere in our solar system.
What will we be capable of in the next 100 years?
That’s if we survive, and that maybe why they are here in these critical times at this moment especially.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Here's something that is familiar and can be dismissed, man made on the bottom.
Then there's a picture of an alien. So rare that they could be, but not.
Then there’s a place where it happens on a regular basis.
http://www.ufolab.info/DNA-Lights-9.htm
Picture of this to the right.
Now these might be geological events, lights caused by grinding quartz from plates shifting under ground.
But when you see one, just one conveyance you’ll know what I know, that there is more to it than skeptics are willing to believe and that’s understandable.
One million skeptics would not get me to believe otherwise.
As if a person can’t tell with their own eyes and ears and other senses what they are looking at especially when it is close enough to raise the hair all over your body.
I read your link ufology and it’s about time they thought differently.
What I could never understand about SETI is the fact that they are listening with radio.
As if an advance technology would use such a primitive method for communication, that’s just silly.
From the linky:

What are the lights in pictures 2 and 3?

 

[Resume]

What will we be capable of in the next 100 years?
That’s if we survive, and that maybe why they are here in these critical times at this moment especially.

To what information are you privy that the rest of us are not?

 

[Tomtomkent]

So pictures of a toy frog, some indistinct lights which could as easily be anything else as a ufo, and a lense flare on an atmospheric shadow. What amongst that is meant to prove aliens again?

Even if the toy was a previously unknown lifeform, how does "previously unknown" become alien?

 

[wollery]

So pictures of a toy frog, some indistinct lights which could as easily be anything else as a ufo, and a lense flare on an atmospheric shadow. What amongst that is meant to prove aliens again?

Even if the toy was a previously unknown lifeform, how does "previously unknown" become alien?

It's not a toy, it's a mupuppy, a type of salamander, a very well known terrestrial lifeform.

 

[Cuddles]

You've changed your story to justify the conclusion you started with and you've been changing it since as the inconsistencies in your unfalsifiable anecdote have been pointed out.

Yet for all the revisions and dishonesty, the story remains nothing more than "I once saw a light but I have no idea what it was". Considering how much effort he's put into making up stories to support his beliefs, you'd think they'd be a bit better than that by now.