UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[RoboTimbo]

AdMan,

It's the Skeptic's thread because the whole website is about skeptical and critical thinking and this thread is about the research and evidence ... so how about digging up some useful skeptical information that would help people interested in ufology better appreciate your point of view? I could care less how it was started or what has gone before, it's time to do something more constructive.

No, you are incorrect. This isn't a Skeptic's thread, it's simply a thread. If you want it to be only for skeptical or critical thinking points of view, why are you posting in it?

Now, let's talk about that J Randall Murphy UFO ( firefly ) Hoax. Why do you suppose that the critical details changed so radically in such a short time? What other details of the hoax changed in the previous decades of embellishing and retelling as problems and contradictions were pointed out?

Because you are so adamant about the skeptical point of view, when do you think the J Randall Murphy null hypothesis which is "All UFOs are of mundane origin" will be falsified? What do you think about the pseudoscientists who use the fallacy of redefinition?

 

[AdMan]

AdMan,

We are talking about UFOs, not fairies. There have been scientists and other professionals who have taken them very seriously. There is also no scientific reason that UFOs ( alien craft ) are not possible or even likely. The main point of contention is whether or not any of them have visited Earth.

So once again, the Internet is full of accounts and articles and science that all have a bearing on the subject matter. Can you please offer up something useful and positive to help those interested in ufology appreciate the skeptical/non-believer's point of view?

We've done it in the past, in response to some of your claims on the infallibility of your memory or the trustworthiness of eyewitness accounts, for example. You didn't sound very appreciative back then.

In any case, as is obvious to anyone following this thread, it is up to the UFO believers to provide evidence. Then we can discuss it and analyze it all we want. The way you are proposing it is completely backwards.

 

[RoboTimbo]

AdMan,

We are talking about UFOs, not fairies.

How do you know that some UFOs aren't fairies? What evidence do you have? Have you done any research into UFOs ( fairies )?

There have been scientists and other professionals who have taken them very seriously.

Have any of those scientists falsified the J Randall Murphy null hypothesis which is "All UFOs are of mundane origin"?

There is also no scientific reason that UFOs ( alien craft ) are not possible or even likely. The main point of contention is whether or not any of them have visited Earth.

There is no scientific reason why UFOs ( fairies ) are not possible or even likely. The only point is whether any of them have ever been caught on camera. Do you see any differece between that argument and yours?

So once again, the Internet is full of accounts and articles and science that all have a bearing on the subject matter. Can you please offer up something useful and positive to help those interested in ufology appreciate the skeptical/non-believer's point of view?

There are many websites devoted to fairies ( UFOs ). Can you provide some of your research into UFOs ( fairies )? What mechanism do you think allows UFOs ( fairies ) to exist in our skies?

Should there be a null hypothesis concerning UFOs ( fairies ) do you think?

 

[Paul2]

We are talking about UFOs, not fairies. There have been scientists and other professionals who have taken them very seriously.

There have been very prominent and respected people who took fairies very seriously. If you're interested, I can point you in the right direction. So the analogy does not fail on this point.

There is also no scientific reason that UFOs ( alien craft ) are not possible or even likely. The main point of contention is whether or not any of them have visited Earth.

"Two penalties on the offense: shifting the burden of proof and failure to acknowledge the null hypothesis. 20 yards. 4th down."

 

[GeeMack]

So once again, the Internet is full of accounts and articles and science that all have a bearing on the subject matter. Can you please offer up something useful and positive to help those interested in ufology appreciate the skeptical/non-believer's point of view?

It appears we have, right here in this thread, one of the perpetrators of a contemporary UFO hoax. I have been trying for several pages to get some discussion going on that very hoax. Those interested in "ufology" would probably find it interesting to know why the hoax was started. They may like to know whether it was planned in any detail or if it was a case of some spontaneous story telling that has grown into the grotesque work of fiction that we see today. I'm also curious to know why the story of the alleged sighting seems to be just a typical alien believer's tale when so much more could have been added to make it actually interesting. I'm guessing it was intentional, used as a soft-sell ploy with the belief that it would be more credible if it was described in a rather mundane way. Do you have any comments on that J. Randall Murphy UFO hoax?

 

[Krikkiter]

AdMan,

We are talking about UFOs, not fairies. There have been scientists and other professionals who have taken them very seriously. There is also no scientific reason that UFOs ( alien craft ) are not possible or even likely. The main point of contention is whether or not any of them have visited Earth.

So once again, the Internet is full of accounts and articles and science that all have a bearing on the subject matter. Can you please offer up something useful and positive to help those interested in ufology appreciate the skeptical/non-believer's point of view?

My bolding and strikethrough.

First, UFO's are not necessarily alien craft.

Second, what "scientific" evidence is there that alien craft exist? Your own personal anecdote that is completely unverified?

 

[mike3]

Yes, far be it from the experts to bring up specialized information that affects your claims. Perception research is important enough for the NTSB to completely change how they train witness interviewers. It's important enough that any serious court case today involves expert witnesses to inform juries about the limits of testimony and memory. It is the science that governs the evaluation of eyewitness testimony.

So what do you think of that, Ufology? Don't you think this'd have major bearings on ufology?

 

[mike3]

AdMan,

We are talking about UFOs, not fairies. There have been scientists and other professionals who have taken them very seriously. There is also no scientific reason that UFOs ( alien craft ) are not possible or even likely. The main point of contention is whether or not any of them have visited Earth.

So once again, the Internet is full of accounts and articles and science that all have a bearing on the subject matter. Can you please offer up something useful and positive to help those interested in ufology appreciate the skeptical/non-believer's point of view?

Would these meet your needs?:
https://www.google.com/search?q=UFO...g.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&client=iceweasel-a
http://www.skepdic.com/ufos_ets.html
http://badufos.blogspot.com/
http://www.csicop.org/resources#ufos
http://ufos.about.com/od/ufoskepticprofiles/p/carlsagan.htm

 

[abaddon]

AdMan,

We are talking about UFOs, not fairies.

They are equivalent in terms of evidence.

There have been scientists and other professionals who have taken them very seriously.

Newton believed in unicorns.

There is also no scientific reason that UFOs ( alien craft )

Again you conflate "unidentified" with "must be aliens" with no evidence. Why is that?

are not possible or even likely.

Evidence?

The main point of contention is whether or not any of them have visited Earth.

Yup, and you can provide none, so the null hypothesis holds.

So once again, the Internet is full of accounts and articles

the internet is full of allsorts of delusion. Just because some wingnut posts something doesn't make it true.

and science

Why is this the last thing you mention? I suspect you do not know how science works.

that all have a bearing on the subject matter.

Of all you mentioned, (including fairies), science is the only one with evidence.

Can you please offer up something useful and positive to help those interested in ufology appreciate the skeptical/non-believer's point of view?

Yup, get an education in critical thinking. That's the best you could do.
Built into this quote is an implicit confrontation. You are unable to percieve this.

The UFO believer simply says there is something anomalous here. But when asked by any what there is, descends into rhetoric and nonsense. Yet somehow, cannot present any evidence. Why is that?

 

[John Albert]

It appears we have, right here in this thread, one of the perpetrators of a contemporary UFO hoax. I have been trying for several pages to get some discussion going on that very hoax. Those interested in "ufology" would probably find it interesting to know why the hoax was started. They may like to know whether it was planned in any detail or if it was a case of some spontaneous story telling that has grown into the grotesque work of fiction that we see today. I'm also curious to know why the story of the alleged sighting seems to be just a typical alien believer's tale when so much more could have been added to make it actually interesting. I'm guessing it was intentional, used as a soft-sell ploy with the belief that it would be more credible if it was described in a rather mundane way.

This is a very good point. In most other cases examined in this thread, the stories have been thirdhand accounts, or worse. They've usually been cobbled-together accounts gleaned from decades-old newspaper stories or official reports, and some cases have been photographs or YouTube videos of obvious hoaxes or misidentified mundane objects.

But here we have a case of a UFO sighting account being related in the first person by an actual claimant whose story fails to check out on numerous points. Nearly every measurable and fact-checkable detail has been shown to be mathematically or circumstantially incongruent, if not outright physically impossible. We have also seen the story being amended and modified in real time as these discrepancies are pointed out by skeptics. This is actually a rare opportunity to study the evolution of a UFO hoax, and possibly even its genesis if the claimant remains cooperative.

I'd be very interested to get more details about how this "sighting" came about; maybe if we could hear from some of the other participants of that evening, we could be able to piece together what really happened. If we could hear from some other people who heard earlier versions of the story, we might be able to get an even better perspective on how it evolved over time.

 

[John Albert]

Would these meet your needs?:
https://www.google.com/search?q=UFO...=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&client=iceweasel-a

Looks like somebody's running Debian!

 

[ufology]

Would these meet your needs?:
https://www.google.com/search?q=UFO...g.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&client=iceweasel-a
http://www.skepdic.com/ufos_ets.html
http://badufos.blogspot.com/
http://www.csicop.org/resources#ufos
http://ufos.about.com/od/ufoskepticprofiles/p/carlsagan.htm

mike3,

Thank you for those links. I've been to them before. But I commend you on the effort and there may be some new readers on the thread who find them useful. It's the most constructive response I've seen here in a long time.

I was mainly hoping that people on the forum would be keeping up with the newer claims, particularly debunking of YouTube videos. By the way, solid science in favor of alien visitation is just as valuable from a skeptical perspective as solid evidence against hoaxes, so it could go either way. Wouldn't it be ironic if it were the skeptics who came up with the first hard pubicly available evidence?

Anyway here's something I could use some help with:

Clark McClelland:

http://www.stargate-chronicles.com/site/et-observed-inside-space-shuttle-payload-bay/

What can you guys dig up on this guy and his story?

 

[RoboTimbo]

mike3,

Thank you for those links. I've been to them before. But I commend you on the effort and there may be some new readers on the thread who find them useful. It's the most constructive response I've seen here in a long time.

I was mainly hoping that people on the forum would be keeping up with the newer claims, particularly debunking of YouTube videos. By the way, solid science in favor of alien visitation is just as valuable from a skeptical perspective as solid evidence against hoaxes, so it could go either way. Wouldn't it be ironic if it were the skeptics who came up with the first hard pubicly available evidence?

Anyway here's something I could use some help with:

Clark McClelland:

http://www.stargate-chronicles.com/site/et-observed-inside-space-shuttle-payload-bay/

What can you guys dig up on this guy and his story?

So you still don't understand your own null hypothesis which is:

"All UFOs are of mundane origin".​

Has the link you supplied falsified your null hypothesis?

 

[GeeMack]

Wouldn't it be ironic if it were the skeptics who came up with the first hard pubicly available evidence?

Ironic? If such an event is ever to occur it's a near certainty it will be skeptics and scientists who come up with the evidence. Since "ufologists" clearly have little or no understanding of science, objectivity, the scientific method, and what constitutes evidence, they certainly won't be involved in any discovery or presentation of legitimate evidence. They have buried themselves so deeply in their subjective, closed minded view that they are unlikely to recognize real evidence if they see it. They can't sort fantasy from reality, so there's no reason to expect any of them to ever be involved in any reality based, objective discovery or analysis of evidence that might falsify your null hypothesis, the one you created, the one that goes like this: All UFOs are of mundane origin.

 

[23_Tauri]

I was mainly hoping that people on the forum would be keeping up with the newer claims, particularly debunking of YouTube videos.

I think you need to be a bit more specific than that. Which particular WooTube clip were you interested in? There are several posters here with the technical skills necessary to examine video footage, so post the vid and I'm sure someone will assist you.

 

[mike3]

Ironic? If such an event is ever to occur it's a near certainty it will be skeptics and scientists who come up with the evidence. Since "ufologists" clearly have little or no understanding of science, objectivity, the scientific method, and what constitutes evidence, they certainly won't be involved in any discovery or presentation of legitimate evidence. They have buried themselves so deeply in their subjective, closed minded view that they are unlikely to recognize real evidence if they see it. They can't sort fantasy from reality, so there's no reason to expect any of them to ever be involved in any reality based, objective discovery or analysis of evidence that might falsify your null hypothesis, the one you created, the one that goes like this: All UFOs are of mundane origin.

However, wouldn't there need to be significant interest in the subject from such scientists in order for them to pursue it to find that evidence?

 

[RoboTimbo]

Anyway here's something I could use some help with:

Clark McClelland:

http://www.stargate-chronicles.com/site/et-observed-inside-space-shuttle-payload-bay/

What can you guys dig up on this guy and his story?

What evidence do you have that the above is not an outright fabrication out of whole cloth? What evidence do you have that any of it occurred at all? The only thing you've given us is a claim. Do you see why a claim isn't evidence for itself?

The claim itself reads like a child's sensationalistic Enquirer article, complete with innocuous details such as the "one minute and seven seconds" and "27 inch monitor" and the exclamation points to lend it verisimilitude.

Have fun researching it yourself. Feel free to present the evidence that you find which falsifies the J Randall Murphy null hypothesis which is:

"All UFOs are of mundane origin"​

 

[mike3]

mike3,

Thank you for those links. I've been to them before. But I commend you on the effort and there may be some new readers on the thread who find them useful. It's the most constructive response I've seen here in a long time.

You're welcome.

I was mainly hoping that people on the forum would be keeping up with the newer claims, particularly debunking of YouTube videos. By the way, solid science in favor of alien visitation is just as valuable from a skeptical perspective as solid evidence against hoaxes, so it could go either way. Wouldn't it be ironic if it were the skeptics who came up with the first hard pubicly available evidence?

Anyway here's something I could use some help with:

Clark McClelland:

http://www.stargate-chronicles.com/site/et-observed-inside-space-shuttle-payload-bay/

What can you guys dig up on this guy and his story?

It's a cool anecdote, but still, just an anecdote. Anecdotes are not scientific evidence at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence

Anecdotal evidence is often unscientific or pseudoscientific because various forms of cognitive bias may affect the collection or presentation of evidence. For instance, someone who claims to have had an encounter with a supernatural being or alien may present a very vivid story, but this is not falsifiable. This phenomenon can also happen to large groups of people through subjective validation.

To get an idea of what this is talking about, consider this. Suppose someone says "I saw a flying saucer last night." Given just that anecdote, can you determine from it that it was:

A. real
B. a mistake
C. a lie

? No? Then you can see why anecdotes are not scientific evidence.

In this case, the anecdote seems even more suspect given how the website looks to be a purpose-made promotional page. I notice how a lot of items appear to be being sold. While it does not constitute a disproof, it does seem cause for suspicion since it hints at a plausible motive for explanation C -- lying -- above, namely, the making of money.

Anecdotes are positioned like this on the hierarchy of evidence:

----
An actual, physical UFO or UFO piece whose exotic nature is rigorously confirmed
...
photographs(?)
---- <-- Limit of scientific admissibility
Anecdotes

(ordered from best to worst quality)

I think it's important here to highlight something: this refusal to accept anecdotes as evidence is not because of an assumption that "all anecdotes are fraudulent". Rather, it's because we know that fraud/lying, cognitive biases, etc. both exist and happen and because we cannot know whether or not they are present in a given anecdote from that anecdote alone. To do so requires evidence higher up on the hierarchy -- i.e. actual scientific evidence pertaining to the phenomenon instance in question. Without such evidence, reason compels us to say "it's just a story" -- nothing more, nothing less.

 

[GeeMack]

However, wouldn't there need to be significant interest in the subject from such scientists in order for them to pursue it to find that evidence?

Scientists are always significantly interested in any subject that shows even the remotest objective possibility of changing the way we look at the Universe we live in. That's what they live for. Alien visitors would absolutely fill that bill. If and whenever even a shred of legitimate evidence turns up, you can be sure the scientific community will be on it.

One thing is certain: If the "ufologists" have any of that legitimate evidence, they have done an impeccable job of keeping it a secret from the rest of the world. If they have the objective evidence that would support their claim that some UFOs are alien craft, they have done an amazingly poor job of presenting that evidence in a cogent, compelling way. So far their failure rate is 100%.

 

[edge]

mike3,

Thank you for those links. I've been to them before. But I commend you on the effort and there may be some new readers on the thread who find them useful. It's the most constructive response I've seen here in a long time.

I was mainly hoping that people on the forum would be keeping up with the newer claims, particularly debunking of YouTube videos. By the way, solid science in favor of alien visitation is just as valuable from a skeptical perspective as solid evidence against hoaxes, so it could go either way. Wouldn't it be ironic if it were the skeptics who came up with the first hard pubicly available evidence?

Anyway here's something I could use some help with:

Clark McClelland:

http://www.stargate-chronicles.com/site/et-observed-inside-space-shuttle-payload-bay/

What can you guys dig up on this guy and his story?

I looked into the site somewhat and there is a thing we agree on and that is pulling your way through space would be the way to go.
I figured that out in the late 80s and by the early 90s also.
I also find Story Musgraves' thoughts intriguing in the Demonstration part of the book.