UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[ufology]

You should add:

Witchcraft in Europe 400-1700: A Documentary History

I assume you want to provide all the different explanations for UFOs ( witches )?

Serious suggestions please ... if that title even exists it will be listed under paranormal books.

 

[23_Tauri]

You should add:

Witchcraft in Europe 400-1700: A Documentary History

I assume you want to provide all the different explanations for UFOs ( witches )?

Good choice. I would recommend this excellent work:

ETA: and a complete set of back issues of Squid Fishing Monthly, of course. In presentation box set, if poss.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Serious suggestions please ... if that title even exists it will be listed under paranormal books.

Of course it was a serious suggestion. Haven't you been following the conversation? It is a virtual certainty that UFOs ( witches ) exist. Why would you list a book of witchcraft under paranormal? They've been proven in courts of law ( triers of fact ), unless you think all of the witnesses could have somehow been hallucinating and the courts ( triers of fact ) somehow came to the wrong judgment.

Is that what you're suggesting?

 

[Krikkiter]

...snip...

Any other suggestions you or the other skeptics can offer, particularly from Amazon would be most welcome. This should be an easy way to positively contribute something constructive from a skeptical viewpoint directly to the people you think need it the most.

Enough of the insults Ufology. This thread has been going for years. Over that time skeptics have freely offered constructive contributions on almost (or) every aspect of your delusion. People have tried in every conceivable way to get you to think logically and objectively about this whole ufology scam. Almost every skeptical post in this thread has been a constructive contribution!

And you wonder why mockery comes into it?

 

[RoboTimbo]

This should be an easy way to positively contribute something constructive from a skeptical viewpoint directly to the people you think need it the most.

An easy way for you to positively contribute something constructive would be to stop cowardly dodging the questions that are asked of you.

Do you think that all of the witnesses to witches were hallucinating and all the courts ( triers of fact ) which found them guilty came to the wrong judgment?

 

[GeeMack]

About cold reading and card reading. I knew what you meant and assumed you would make the connection between card readers and cold readers and your point.

Sorry, what connection? What has cold reading got to do with card tricks?

The evidence provided so far in this thread would support the notion that his argument there is just another lie. Backpedaling is, after all, one of the standard devices in the "ufology" toolkit. When engaged in the pseudoscience of "ufology", honesty takes a back seat to maintaining the faith in aliens.

 

[23_Tauri]

Serious suggestions please ... if that title even exists it will be listed under paranormal books.

No it wouldn't, it would be in the history section!

It's ufology books in the paranormal section of the library.

 

[GeeMack]

An easy way for you to positively contribute something constructive would be to stop cowardly dodging the questions that are asked of you.

Yep. And here's another...

Of all the things that were allegedly seen flying and perceived to be objects, which were at first unidentified but later identified as some particular thing, how many of those turned out to be alien craft?

 

[GeeMack]

No it wouldn't, it would be in the history section!

It's ufology books in the paranormal section of the library.

"Ufology" books would be with the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot.

 

[23_Tauri]

The evidence provided so far in this thread would support the notion that his argument there is just another lie. Backpedaling is, after all, one of the standard devices in the "ufology" toolkit. When engaged in the pseudoscience of "ufology", honesty takes a back seat to maintaining the faith in aliens.

Sadly so, GeeMack. Funny how it's so obvious to the rest of us and yet fol thinks we don't notice. Quite extraordinary.

 

[ufology]

So out of the last 10 or so posts there is only one actual book suggestion. The rest have been either irrelevant or nonsensical. That's an interesting factoid to include in my notes on the constructiveness of the skeptics ... at least the ones here.

 

[RoboTimbo]

So out of the last 10 or so posts there is only one actual book suggestion. The rest have been either irrelevant or nonsensical. That's an interesting factoid to include in my notes on the constructiveness of the skeptics ... at least the ones here.

The above poster is misrepresenting the truth. Again. Because he cowardly dodges questions that reveal the weakness in his religous beliefs, he chooses to instead attack the people posing them.

 

[Krikkiter]

So out of the last 10 or so posts there is only one actual book suggestion. The rest have been either irrelevant or nonsensical. That's an interesting factoid to include in my notes on the constructiveness of the skeptics ... at least the ones here.

More insults.

 

[GeeMack]

So out of the last 10 or so posts there is only one actual book suggestion. The rest have been either irrelevant or nonsensical. That's an interesting factoid to include in my notes on the constructiveness of the skeptics ... at least the ones here.

It would, of course, be a lie to suggest the skeptical community here has been anything less than helpful and cooperative.

Oh, by the way, of all the supposedly flying things, unidentified at the outset, eventually identified as a particular thing, how many turned out to be alien craft? And why all the fear? Is it really so scary to face reality and answer that question? I'm trying to be as cooperative as I can and help you understand a little something that you've been neglecting about truth and reality as it applies to UFOs.

 

[GeeMack]

More insults.

It's all he has. His effort to support the claim that some UFOs are alien craft ended in failure before it even arrived here at the JREF forum. Even his very first series of posts contained dishonest accusations that the skeptical community was somehow responsible for the wholesale failure on the part of "ufologists" to support their fantasy. And given every opportunity to make a compelling case, somewhere around 1,700 posts laid down, he still has nothing but insults, arguments from incredulity, dishonest redefinitions of terms, cherry picking, straw man arguments, lies, dodging of questions, and ignorance of relevant details. It's been a highly predictable, but totally failed effort.

 

[Krikkiter]

It's all he has. His effort to support the claim that some UFOs are alien craft ended in failure before it even arrived here at the JREF forum. Even his very first series of posts contained dishonest accusations that the skeptical community was somehow responsible for the wholesale failure on the part of "ufologists" to support their fantasy. And given every opportunity to make a compelling case, somewhere around 1,700 posts laid down, he still has nothing but insults, arguments from incredulity, dishonest redefinitions of terms, cherry picking, straw man arguments, lies, dodging of questions, and ignorance of relevant details. It's been a highly predictable, but totally failed effort.

And despite the above, skeptics continue to contribute constructively.

 

[Tomtomkent]

So after 412 pages we have:

Research: none that actually suggests UFOs are alien craft, just poorly constructed case studies that ignore the principles of evidence and replace it with "when one has eliminated all mundane sources that one can thinkof, what ever is left, no matter how improbable is ZOMG ALIENS!

Evidence: who needs evidence? If it isn't identified you cant prove it wasn't alien, so it probably was. (And any other analagous theory I don't like is too silly to need disproving).

Number of UFOs for which we have evidence of both existence and alien origin; zero.

 

[Akhenaten]

Pixel:

There are a couple of issues to address. At first the idea that in the absence of verification, the more novel the experience, the more likely we are to misinterpret it seems logical, and in the context of your card reader example, I would tend to agree.

Looks like the first issue we need to address is your literacy.

Card reader???

However a phony card reader is a con game to win someone's confidence in an unseen psychic ability, while UFO sightings involve the observation of things.

I thought a phony card reader was something that crooks put on ATMs to steal people's account information. In any case, it has nothing to do with what Pixel was talking about.

A physical stimulus response has to take place, and that is harder to pull off.

Sounds like a bit of a wank to me.

Certainly a clever hoax can fool someone, but as you say, "In most cases the scepticsm is based on the possibility that the witness is misinterpreting rather than fabricating." and I would also tend to agree.

As one who is widely suspected of fabricating a whole range of stuff that's not really much of a surprise.

So then what we are dealing with is an important change in context where the general principle you posit runs into some trouble with logic. Let's review:

"In the absence of verification, the more novel the experience, the more likely we are to misinterpret it."

Replacing someone else's statement with one of your own because it provides an opportunity for you to insert a response more in keeping with your own agenda isn't 'reviewing', folo. It's called creating a strawman and it's quite dishonest.

And transparent.

Now the question becomes, misinterpret what?

Witches.

With respect to UFOs the answer is typically always something mundane.

FTFY

You forget the null hypothesis even more often than you forget the FLIR.

Where the logic of the proposed principle fails is that if the object is in fact mundane, then its very nature also makes is not novel, and therefore it should be easily recognized without verification.

What utter rubbish.

Are you really proposing that every bat, bird, blimp, balloon, biplane and witch that appears in the sky is easily recognisable and that anything else must therefore be an Omgalien?

And you dare to refer to a failure of logic in the null hypothesis?

Srsly???

<more drivel>

Civilian investigators and students of ufology are supposed to be equally as diligent at considering the possible misperceptions . . .

Supposed by whom? You?

I think I've spotted a flaw in your plan, Brain.

. . . but obviously, without a structured command or accountability like in the USAF, the reliability of civilian reports warrants a greater degree of skepticism.

Almost the right conclusion from a completely borked premise.

With respect to my own sighting. It looks like you may have missed a few things.

Hard to believe, since you've repeated it so many times. Or have you added a few more details since the last iteration?

Do tell.

I actually have plenty of good reasons to believe that what I saw was an alien craft.

Of course you do, but outside of your personal reality they aren't worth a tinker's cuss.

What I don't have is evidence that proves to a third party such as yourself that those reasons are valid. And without rehashing the whole story that's what it comes down to.

I can't help noticing that you constantly try to minimise the extent of the disbelief in your claims by referring to the skepticism of individual third parties. Face it, folo - nobody believes you.

But if you want to review a few of the details anyway, just to clarify, then I don't mind answering a few of your questions.

'Clarification' and you 'answering a few questions' are not at all the same thing, no matter what you might like to think.

 

[Akhenaten]

About cold reading and card reading. I knew what you meant and assumed you would make the connection between card readers and cold readers and your point.

I've compiled a list of all the people who are likely to believe that:

So technically it's my fault for not being more clear.

No, it's just totally your fault for being in such a rush to post the next installment of OMG . . . aliens!: The Overtold Story that you don't have time to actually read the posts to which you're pretending to respond.

And your last example makes sense in the context I posed at the end of our last exchange. So without being too nitpicky, and the issues of my own sighting aside, it seems we're pretty much in synch with the basic intent of your points. Thanks for lightening up a little.

What in the name of Isis are you talking about?

BTW: I'm assembling a list of books ( recommended reading to post on my website that deal with UFOs and the paranormal from a skeptical, critical thinking and/or more detached point of view point of view. So far I've got the following:

<shill>

Any other suggestions you or the other skeptics can offer, particularly from Amazon would be most welcome. This should be an easy way to positively contribute something constructive from a skeptical viewpoint directly to the people you think need it the most.

 

[Pixel42]

Any other suggestions you or the other skeptics can offer

The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan.

Sorry, what connection? What has cold reading got to do with card tricks?

To be fair, Tarot card readers use cold reading a lot. It's possible that's the kind of cards he meant.