Merged Is ufology a pseudoscience?

[John Albert]

As far as (alleged) eyewitness sightings, Santa is a clear winner over your flying saucers.

I witnessed Santa Claus myself, more than once!

You skeptics can try to reason him away in your own minds, but I know what I saw and heard was real, and you'll never be able to take that away!

ETA-- My mom even has photographic evidence to prove it!

 

[Pixel42]

My, this thread has grown in the last 24 hours.

Just a pity no progress is being made.

 

[Rramjet]

Do you have any verified radar, photos, film, physical trace evidence for Santa (or even multiple eyewitness sightings)?

Not at the moment, but how much do you want to bet they'd come pouring in every Christmas, if I put up a website?

That evidence would be every bit as valid and falsifiable as any evidence for UFOs.

Damn it, now I might actually have to do this, just to prove a point.

Note the key word in my statement above? It is “verified”.

The other key factor is that we have a historical body of evidence for UFOs stretching back through history (even before websites and we just don’t have that for Santa – although I am sure you could indeed manufacture some if you put your mind to it…

OK then, on what basis did those researchers arrive at those statistics?

The USAF, Hendry and Hynek? If you can’t trust any of them to produce accurate stats, then you will trust no-one at all. The USAF is purportedly neutral, Hendry is a confirmed debunker of some standing, and Hynek a noted scientist. Its good to be critically minded, but as cynical as you are..?

Either way, that figure (like most "facts" in the study of ufology) is so unreliable as to be practically meaningless.

You see, even when I produce the evidence to support my contentions you refuse to believe it. At least I do support my contentions with evidence…

The contention from the UFO debunkers is that all UFO reports are principally caused by a misidentification of mundane objects.

Except when they aren't.

There's always the possibility that they're hoaxes, lies, confabulations, optical illusions, hallucinations, hypnagogia, etc.

..yes …according to the evidence, around 1-2% of cases… leaving 98% or more of cases, that according to the debunkers, are the result of misidentified mundane objects…

Considering the fact that, you know, absolutely zero material evidence has ever been presented to corroborate any of these stories.

It does not matter whether the “stories’ have been corroborated or not for my hypothesis to be tested. We are considering ALL reports, without fear or favour, the balance between groups should be proportionate…

"Mundane objects" is an extremely vague and broad category. How many different kinds of "mundane objects" would you say exist in the entire world?

It’s a comparative statistical analysis I am proposing. It does not matter what the shapes (or sizes, etc) are, they should be distributed evenly within both groups (if the UFO debunkers are right that is).

 

[Rramjet]

My, this thread has grown in the last 24 hours.

Just a pity no progress is being made.

You came in with a few points of interest, I replied to you on those points, you failed to get back to me about them, (so I assumed my points were sound and you had no argument with them - and as yuo have not contested them here when you have the opportunity I maintain that assumption) - then what "progress" above and beyond that do you want? ...oh you mean those people who put forward assertions, I refute them, and they come back with the same old assertion as if it had not been refuted? Surprise! De ja vu ... again...LOL.

Oops, this is ufology's thread... I'll stop posting for a while then...

 

[John Albert]

The USAF, Hendry and Hynek? If you can’t trust any of them to produce accurate stats, then you will trust no-one at all. The USAF is purportedly neutral, Hendry is a confirmed debunker of some standing, and Hynek a noted scientist. Its good to be critically minded, but as cynical as you are..?

Not cynical, skeptical. I don't take contentions at face value, and I generally ignore misleading appeals to authority.

I'm sorry, but calling somebody a "noted scientist" just doesn't cut it. He may be a revered scientist in UFO enthusiast circles for lending an air of legitimacy to their beliefs, but that means nothing to me personally.

The contention from the UFO debunkers is that all UFO reports are principally caused by a misidentification of mundane objects.

..yes …according to the evidence, around 1-2% of cases… leaving 98% or more of cases, that according to the debunkers, are the result of misidentified mundane objects…

You haven't provided any basis for that "1-2%" statistic. Until I see exactly how it was arrived at, I refuse to accept it as valid. I suspect the real percentage of hoaxes and lies is probably much higher. As I said before, I suspect those stats represent confirmed hoaxes. It doesn't mean that a good percentage of the "indeterminate" cases weren't also hoaxes and lies, and the researchers just weren't able to tell.

I asked you to specify how the researchers arrived at those statistics. Despite your defensive reply, you never answered that question.

If these people are really trained scientists, it should not be difficult to find adequate documentation describing exactly how they tabulated their results.

You see, even when I produce the evidence to support my contentions you refuse to believe it. At least I do support my contentions with evidence…

Your first problem is your total, blind acceptance of all UFO testimonials as gospel truth. This problem is endemic to all promoters of pseudoscience: lots of tall tales with nothing material to back them up. No matter how many anecdotes you have, that doesn't change the fact that mere stories are inadequate to prove something for which no material evidence exists.

As Dr. Mark Crislip is fond of saying, "The plural of anecdote is not data."

It does not matter whether the “stories’ have been corroborated or not for my hypothesis to be tested. We are considering ALL reports, without fear or favour, the balance between groups should be proportionate.

It does matter because for one thing, your hypothesis operates on a general assumption that is probably very wrong. You have no firm basis to make any assumptions about the proportion of sightings that could be hoaxes, lies, hallucinations, and other kinds of confabulations. The most reasonable assumption is that the more extraordinary tales (involving close encounters, abductions, etc.) are most likely confabulated, and that would throw your results way off.

It’s a comparative statistical analysis I am proposing. It does not matter what the shapes (or sizes, etc) are, they should be distributed evenly within both groups (if the UFO debunkers are right that is).

I can't believe you're incapable of seeing the humongous flaws in this approach of yours. The whole premise is very poorly reasoned and wouldn't prove anything either way.

Somebody help me out here. How do I explain to this guy that his proposed meta-analysis of UFO data is totally irrelevant to the question of whether UFOs are real?

 

[Pixel42]

You came in with a few points of interest, I replied to you on those points, you failed to get back to me about them, (so I assumed my points were sound and you had no argument with them - and as yuo have not contested them here when you have the opportunity I maintain that assumption)

No, I've just been away from my computer for the last 24 hours. And as the thread has moved on so much in the interim (and the points I would have made in response have mostly been made by others, to no avail) I made my comment instead of replying to day old posts.

Here's a couple of responses, though, since you ask:

Just as you have done in not accepting an alternate interpretation such as a lack of knowledge in the application of critical thinking – as opposed to your “wilful refusal” to consider alternates …perchance?

As I said, I was specifically talking about people who are given every possible opportunity to fill the gaps in their knowledge and understanding about these things and deliberately choose not to. There are a few, but enough, counter-examples - people who came here as fully commited woo believers, learned to think critically and became stalwarts of the forum - to describe such refusal to consider alternatives as wilful, I think. I, by contrast, am quite willing to consider any explanation of any phenomenon for which evidence is offered. So no, I see no comparison.

So then any investigation would set out to determine if your hypothesis was true. An investigator would interview friends and colleagues, they would look at past behaviours and any biographical information that may shed light on the type of character.

Yes that is precisely the sort of further information I mean, which would lead me to reconsider whether to take this particular anecdote seriously. Obviously I'm not in a position to gather that further information myself and, as the person who relayed this second-hand anecdote doesn't have it either, I continue to maintain that the most likely explanation is that the guy was pulling his leg.

 

[Aepervius]

It's only unthinkable in situations where absolute precision is critical for health and safety reasons, like how much pressure a tire will take before it explodes in someone's face, or how much medication it takes to overdose, or how strong a bolt needs to be to keep an airplane engine from falling off. But even in those situations, there is a margin of error. Human advancement has always involved taking chances and risks. If we had always refused to explore things unless we were absolutely certain we were doing it perfectly every time, we'd still be living in the stone age.

In the case of human experience and UFOs, it's not a life or death situation. If somebody says they saw a UFO it won't place anyone's life in danger to report it. It's not "unthinkable" to listen to people's experiences and consider what they have been through. It's more "unthinkable" that anyone would use science as a reason for ignoring the common experiences so many fellow human beings.

Sharing our experiences as human beings is a perfectly natural part of human existence and communication. It is valuable ... it is essential.

j.r.

The ONLY things you can conclude from somebody witnessing an UFO telling the story to you , is that they (their brain) interpreted something in their visual cortex, and told that interpretation from you.

You CANNOT from their interpretation say whether it was a real visual stimulus (drug, hallucinations, day dreams, fertile imagination, or just plain short misinterpretation of the brain, optical illusion), you cannot say from the story that it was a real object or improperly non-recognized (fata morgana, misinterpretation of a known satellite, planetoid, comet, weather phenomena, real KNOWN flying object not just to the witness etc...), and sadly, even if you somehow jump to the conclusion that there was really an UFO in the sense that nobody on earth would be able to say it is a known object, you CANNOT jump to the conclusion that this was an alien space craft (it could be a natural phenomenon, it could be Planewalker from the Prime plane on its way to Sigil, it could be a ghost, a god, an angel, a faery, and i pass many others).

There is pretty much nothing you can conclude from it.

Now if in addition you see the problem of witness for a simple things as the color of a car in an accident hapenning 50 feet away from them, you quickly understand how utterly worthless a witness story is.

 

[Aepervius]

My, this thread has grown in the last 24 hours.

Just a pity no progress is being made.

No progress will *EVER* be made as long as believer refuse to udnerstand that a good story is just that : a good story.

 

[Stray Cat]

Hey Stray ...

Sure there are reports by people who should know what they are looking at but don't get it right. The original point was that you were contending they are all of the same reliability and credibility because it is all "subjective".

You're going to run out of straw eventually.

That's not what I was contending at all. I was talking about your totally subjective opinion of your own ability to determine people's character in order to judge how 'reliable' they were. Apparently it's all down to if they wear a uniform or something. Unless they sell real estate in which case, that makes them very believable too, because real estate salesmen have such a reputation for honesty (especially when if they are only personalising and re-telling Lonnie Zamora's UFO encounter).

So I pointed out with examples how that reasoning is not accurate. If it's obvious that the fraudualent publicity seeker is less credible, then I've made my point. Now we have a report obtained from a USAF investigatior.

Again you successfully knocked down the strawman you built..... well done.

Perhaps if you address my real point now and not the one you keep insisting I'm making?

What about the one's who aren't obvious?
How do you stop them from getting through your subjective character judging filter?

Status: Unexplained.
Source: Head of USAF Project Bluebook
Specific dates and names witheld for security reasons.
... [story sniped]

Repeating the same story doesn't make it any more credible the second time round.

Even if we set the radar evidence aside, you can't possibly think that the story given by the fraudulent publicity seeker is equally as credible as a report obtained by USAF specialists, from an Air Force pilot who could make out details of an object he was chasing at less than 1000 yards during the day?

Does this in any way get us closer to determining if the Air Force Pilot was immune from the same misperception issues as any other human?
Again, you miss the point.

 

[Stray Cat]

You are simply not telling either the truth or the whole story there Stray Cat.

No, what I was doing was pointing out a UFO story held up as 'credible' because it fits the description often spouted by UFOlogists (highly trained military pilot along with other high ranking military personel) who reported something and gave evidence to back it up, who turned out to be wrong (non credible) in their assertion that what they showed was what they claimed it to be.

It's not an examination of the evidence (we'll leave that for your mammoth thread shall we?), but a summary of the faulty conclusion they reached due to their lack of critical thinking.

Before the FLIR incident there were a number of anomalous radar contacts and the aircrew became intent on discovering what those contacts were. It seemed as if the was a UFO out there, yet they could make no visual contact. Then psychologically primed for a visual contact they saw (what has subsequently been contended) the oil well flares. Naturally they thought they had their visual confirmation. You can access the full details of the story here (http://brumac.8k.com/MexicanDOD5mar04/)

And the supposedly 'credible military personnel' never thought to look at or investigate their FLIR video properly and critically before releasing the story to the international news channels.

However, when it comes to reliability, then the military people come into their own.

See above

Their reports are generally much more detailed (providing a much greater opportunity to falsify or verify) and they don’t tend to simply make things up when reporting back to their superiors. They may misidentify, but their detailed descriptions allow us to determine more easily what that misidentification might actually have been. (swings and roundabouts…)

Unless they are covering up a crashed metallic acorn of course, then they are the most unreliable non credible gummint shills and should be ashamed of themselves?

 

[RoboTimbo]

I hesitate to speak for him (and he can correct me if I misconstrue his meaning) but not at all, ufology means that if you see a genuine UFO you will know it is a genuine UFO

How can you tell if one is a UFO (unidentified flying object) or genuine UFO (genuine unidentified flying object)? That merely begs the question of not having a skeptical mindset, which was my post to him that you are answering in a circular manner.

principally but not only because it will be doing things that are just not possible - and no amount of critical analysis will make whatever it is doing possible.

I see now. So, a bug or RC plane close to the observer which the observer mistakes for a pseudoalien vehicle very far away would be a genuine UFO because they would make seemingly impossible maneuvers.

You will not have to ask questions about whether it could have been this or that, because it will be immediately obvious that it is just not (and simply cannot be), “this or that”. If you see one, you will know…

Except, as I've shown you, you won't know, but you will believe.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Yup ... almost anyway, there will come a point in any good sighting when that will happen. It may not happen the first second you see it ( or it might ), but it will happen just as Rramjet describes ... there will be no doubt.

j.r.

I have no doubt that the believer will have no doubt.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Let’s define some of them specifically then:

Colour
Shape
Speed
Number of objects

Fair enough?

There should be no difference in defined characteristics (listed above) between UFO reports that have been determined to have mundane explanations and those reports that remain unidentified.

That's silly. How many assumptions are you making in that? I have a better null hypothesis:

Some UFOs are pseudoalien vessels.​

There is only one assumption which could be confirmed with only one piece of extraordinary evidence for pseudoaliens.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Somehow I doubt that. What sets UFOlogy apart from such things is the evidence:
Do you have any verified radar, photos, film, physical trace evidence for Santa (or even multiple eyewitness sightings)?

You forgot FLIR again. LOL!

You have actual radar, photos, film, and physical trace evidence that has been verified to be pseudoaliens? Wow! Why haven't you shared it with the rest of the world? You're the only one who knows about it! That is amazing that it has been verified pseudoaliens! That definitely sets UFOlogy apart from other pseudsciences.

Of course, if you were pulling our collective leg, UFOlogy remains in the same realm as other pseudosciences.

 

[Stray Cat]

When Rramjet sees the real Santa Claus, he won't need to ask such silly questions, he'll just know

 

[RoboTimbo]

Do you have any verified radar, photos, film, physical trace evidence for Santa (or even multiple eyewitness sightings)?

Note the key word in my statement above? It is “verified”.

I did note it. I made a point of noting it. Now you'll have to show us this radar, photo, film, and physical evidence that has been verified to be pseudoaliens. Put it in the thread formerly known as moderated where such evidence has been notable for its non-existence.

The other key factor is that we have a historical body of evidence for UFOs stretching back through history (even before websites and we just don’t have that for Santa – although I am sure you could indeed manufacture some if you put your mind to it…

Why do you discount the centuries of Santa Claus folklore that is so prevalent thoughout the entire world? There are more anecdotes for Santa Claus than for UFOs as pseudoaliens.

• NORAD (trained military observers) tracks him on radar every year. You aren't going to tell me that NORAD doesn't know what they're doing, are you?
• We also have physical evidence of Santa Claus in the form of presents.
• I've seen films of Santa Claus and he always appears the same.
• Don't even get me started on the photographic evidence.
• I'm not sure we have him on FLIR but you always forget that one anyway. LOL!

Santa Claus positively defies plausible mundane explanation.

You Rramjet, as a Santa claus debunker, simply have a belief system that Santa Claus isn't real. It isn't based on the evidence.

Here's a null hypothesis for you:

If Santa Claus is not real, the various depictions of him would vary widely.​

Easy to falsify. Go ahead, Santa Claus debunkers.

 

[Astrophotographer]

OK ... that's interesting. I just reviewed that and then scanned through a CUFOs bulletin ( the people who did the poll ), from 1980 ( when the poll was done ), that summarizes the study, and it seems to contradict the assertion that nothing out of the ordinary that couldn't be explained was ever reported. Here's a quote:

Sixty-Six Unknowns Seen Through A Telescope:

With so many amateur astronomers reporting observations which resisted attempts at explanation one immediately asks, " How many observations were made with the astronomer's telescope or binoculars, presumed handy at al I times?" Sixty-six out of 427 observations of all sorts were made through the astronomer's telescope, generally after the object was spotted first by eye. Forty additional objects were observed by binoculars alone. Thus, nearly a quarter of the puzzling observatIons were made with optical aids! Mr. Herb next singled out cases of high strangeness; i.e., cases of sources in erratic motion and the "close encounter" cases. Fourteen of these were observed through a telescope and 17 through binoculars.​

j.r.​

Interesting but I am not impressed. Herb's description of the three "best cases" that represented "alien technology" in the Astronomical League's reflector was not that impressive. Without any specifics in your source, one has to wonder exactly what was reported and called a close encounter, when he interpreted one observation as being able to see details inside the "craft". I have to place these observations with optical aid in the same category. These reports are basically nocturnal lights seen under magnification. No craft are reported and none exhibited maneuvers that appeared to defy the laws of physics. In the Reflector article he states:

"The majority of the sightings involve the sighting of nocturnal lights and unresolved shapes which might have been identified given sufficient opportunity. In many cases the witnesses were not convinced of the anamolous nature of their sightings." (The reflector August 1979 Page 1)

He then goes on to detail that other sightings could not be so easily dismissed and that some indicated "alien technology". He finally listed three cases, which he felt were indicative of the best cases where structural details were observed and, in two cases, views of the craft interior can be seen. In my previous link to SUNlite 1-3, I mention one and how it could have been the orbital burn of a rocket engine on a spy satellite (because of the changing orbital elements of these satellites it is hard to determine if it was a KH-8 or not). However, even if it was not a satellite, I would hardly consider the description enough to say they were viewing the interior of a craft.

I also want to point out that being a member of the astronomical league does not necessarily mean the amateur astronomer is skilled in any way. If you join a club associated with the league, you were a member. It usually part of your club dues. As a result, we don't really know what the quality of the instruments and skill set of the observers making these reports were. Add to that the bias in the observer. I recall one astronomy club meeting where a member described his experiences with several alien races/UFO experiences. I was about 14 with an interest in UFOs (even believing they might be alien spaceships!) and ancient astronauts at the time. However, I could not even accept his stories as being reliable. He was a member of the astronomical league. Do you think he might have submitted some UFO reports of "high strangeness"? I have met my share of people with "high strangeness" at astronomy club meetings over the years. All would have been eligible (and probably very willing) to participate in the survey. I shouldn't have to mention Chuck Shramek, who was an amateur astronomer and started the whole Comet Hale-Bopp and UFO business.

It is important to note that this is long before the days of the internet where items could be readily identified by consensus. For instance, I saw a pair of satellites moving across the sky. I knew they were a pair but had never before seen such an arrangement. I contacted some satellite observers with the specifics of my observations and they readily identified the satellite pair for me. Compare this to back in the early 1970s when I had my small 2-inch refractor and was observing a moving star that moved far slower than any satellite I had ever seen before. It was about magnitude +2 and moved from south to north. It appeared about the same time every night during the time period it was clear (a few days). I had to wait until the next astronomy club meeting to discuss this observation at length with a pair of experienced observers. Luckily, one was very informed about satellites and recognized it as a polar orbiting soviet spy satellite that was in high earth orbit. I can only imagine what I would have thought of a booster rocket dumping fuel as it traversed the night sky giving us one of those "sky spiral" displays. Then there were the OGRE observations in the early 1980s that was sparked by some amateur astronomers, who thought they saw something unique. After several months, analysis demonstrated that all they had observed were satellite glints (pretty interesting but explainable). However, for some time people were trying to see the OGRE and Sky and Telescope was encouraging observers to look for it. Today, the OGRE probably would have been resolved within days by astronomers on the internet (and using their satellite tracking programs) and not the months it took to identify it using snail mail and published articles.

In summary, while it is interesting that these amateurs report seeing events that they could not identify, it is not that significant unless you can provide details of a case where it was something a little more than "lights in the sky" or small spheres of light.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

OK then Tomkins ...

Do you have any ideas on how to obtain evidence? Is not the pursuit of evidence a worthy effort? Do you have any evidence you would like to share with us?

j.r.

That depends. Evidence of what?

 

[Stray Cat]

That depends. Evidence of what?

It this thread, I would hope ufology was asking for evidence of critical thinking in UFOlogy...


... ummmm...



No... can't think of any up to now.

 

[ufology]

The ONLY things you can conclude from somebody witnessing an UFO telling the story to you , is that they (their brain) interpreted something in their visual cortex, and told that interpretation from you.

You CANNOT from their interpretation say whether it was a real visual stimulus (drug, hallucinations, day dreams, fertile imagination, or just plain short misinterpretation of the brain, optical illusion), you cannot say from the story that it was a real object or improperly non-recognized (fata morgana, misinterpretation of a known satellite, planetoid, comet, weather phenomena, real KNOWN flying object not just to the witness etc...), and sadly, even if you somehow jump to the conclusion that there was really an UFO in the sense that nobody on earth would be able to say it is a known object, you CANNOT jump to the conclusion that this was an alien space craft (it could be a natural phenomenon, it could be Planewalker from the Prime plane on its way to Sigil, it could be a ghost, a god, an angel, a faery, and i pass many others).

There is pretty much nothing you can conclude from it.

Now if in addition you see the problem of witness for a simple things as the color of a car in an accident hapenning 50 feet away from them, you quickly understand how utterly worthless a witness story is.

Actually it isn't reasonable to generalize that way. I posted an early case where a USAF fighter pilot chased a UFO for over 2 minutes during the day and closed to under 1000 yards, close enough to see it clearly as a real solid object in flight ahead of him that he was in pursuit of.

USAF fighter pilots are highly trained experienced pilots that are a cut above the rest of the military pilots, and those are a cut above regular civilian pilots, who are a cut above the typical citizen in terms of training and identifying what is going on in the sky. There is simply no valid comparison between that caliber of a witness and report and that of a random traffic accident.

If you don't believe that then go see how long it takes you to get your training to fly one ( a real one ), not one in a video game. You'll be lucky if you're even accepted into the program, let alone pass basic training and flight school. These pilots have super keen reflexes and eyesight. They are smart, they know the sky and they are trained to identify aircraft, including exotic enemy aircraft. They understand how aircraft work. They don't just learn to fly them and land them, they learn how to fight with them ... their level of training and reliability in a military role makes them extremely credible ... it's not just their job, it's their life, for many the fulfilment of a personal dream, and after going through all the work to get to where they are, they are not going to throw it away and risk military prosecution by spoofing a UFO sighting to their commanders.

Add to that the RADAR returns that alerted the pilot to the object and you have some pretty convincing first person evidence ( which is not anecdotal ). Then there is the follow-up investigation by USAF specialists, including the head of Project Blue Book himself, which is where this report came from ... directly from the head of the USAF project, not some UFO buff in the woods of Pennsylvania.

j.r.