Cont: UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

My new addiction is Flightradar24 .com. After the NJ drone silliness I started using it on my phone whenever a plane flies over the house, and at night when I see distant lights. I must admit that although I am an experience plane-spotter, I was shocked at how far away some aircraft can be while still be clearly visible at night. Right now the record is 24 miles, when blew me away because I would have bet on five miles. And it was a 757, which was not the small private craft I had guessed it to be. I'm happy to admit I'm still learning things.
 
July 2 is National UFO Day. Not sure why Bigfoot doesn't get a day, but with the current White House and Congress, it's only a matter of time.

Anyway, as a former hard-core believer in little green men, I feel the need to point out what a bunch of incompetent hacks the current UAP/UFO "activist" community are. Not only have they not presented any evidence of any kind, they seem ignorant of past UFO lore, which in a few cases had a more robust set of circumstances, and better quality eye-witnesses than the drek they've presented thus far. They're not even trying. And worse, the press has deteriorated to the point where their claims are aired unchallenged, and unverified.

The single best book ever written on this topic is: Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Alien Abduction, UFOs, and the Conference at M.I.T. - by C.B.D.Bryan. Written by a true skeptic with an open mind, Bryan waded into the topic, and lays out quality statistics for alternate explanations (those claiming alien abduction may be victims of sexual abuse, for example, and the shared aspects of alien abduction and Satanic Cult abductions). Bryan goes down a couple of rabbit holes, and admits that while there is no evidence, he understands how reasonable people get sucked into Woo Land.
 
Ah, I must go back and read the “blimp saga” for ◊◊◊◊◊ and giggles.

As to current UFO hacks, I don’t miss member Ufology here, but I did have respect for Paul Vigay on sci.skeptic. He believed crop circles were the work of UFOs/aliens, complete bleever, but at least argued honestly and didn’t misrepresent his opponents arguments, nor play the man. He did wriggle around uncomfortable facts debunking his beliefs, but never in a “bad actor” manner.

About the only person I tried not to call “wooist”.
 
Last edited:
I'm happy to consider that there is intelligent life elsewhere, maybe even space-faring, but I stop short at the UFO visitation thing for a variety of reasons, but one of the biggest is that why, even with how great our tech is and how good cameras, etc etc are, do we still never have anything better than distant spots of light and other vague, blurry pictures? (Let me guess: cloaking technology. Stupid Romulans!) It's the same with all the other silly things like Bigfoot and Loch Ness, etc. No real evidence, just vague this-could-be-anything claims/hoaxes, etc.
 
As Steven Novella says, the entire phenomenon exists in the ambiguity of blurry photos and videos. We don't have any clear photos of UFOs, because in a clear photo, you can see what it is. We have plenty of clear photos of things up in the sky, and none of them are alien spacecraft. Only the blurry ones can be used as "evidence".
 
Exactly. And that's why whenever someone shows me a blurry photo and asks "what else could it possibly be?" I reply "a ghost". "Bigfoot" would also be a suitable answer. Or "I think it looks like Darth Vader".
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
One of the many things I garnered from reading Eric Hoffer's The True Believer is that believers can believe any and all sorts of crap at the same time. Or at least sequentially.
Click to expand...
And there is a sort of "honour amongst thieves" attitude that means they tend to (until a schism) not contradict a fellow conspiracy theory bod.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom