"The absolute, honest truth about UFOs"

[Susheel]

So why do you think there is probability life elsewhere yet deny the possibility of alien UFOs. Please don't go into the regular spiel of how none have been proven(neither has string theory, whether there is/was life on Mars, etc.,) and all the pictures are blurry and jerky. There are very clear pics out there. And no, I won't provide the links until you have made a good faith gesture of scouring the internet for the good ones. It will be a good exercise in Open minded true-skeptic critical thinking.

You are misrepresenting the argument. No one is denying the possible existence of extra terrestrial life in the universe. The skepticism is about the absolute belief that actual craft from these life forms have visited earth and interacted with select people here.

Apart from the lack of evidence, one major factor that tips the balance of probability against this conclusion can be arrived at by asking a simple question.

Why us?

Considering that the universe is so vast, the distances between stars, let alone galaxies mind bogglingly huge, and the fact that Earth, to quote Douglas Adams exists "far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet". Yes, I am aware it is a quote from a work of fiction, but that's more or less the reality.

So what is the significance of our planet, that makes it accrding to UFO enthusiasts, the cross roads of intergalactic travel?

Re: Your challenge of not producing evidence unless we guarantee full acceptance of whatever you choose to submit as evidence...take it somewhere else. Don't threaten us with railway shares, you really have nothing.

 

[MG1962]

I know of Thomas Mantel who got fooled by the planet Venus.

Mantel, and many people since don't realize what Venus looks like when viewed in broad daylight

 

[welshdean]

But - Sydney isn't in Wales.

I have a new BFF

 

[FrederickEason]

There are very clear pics out there. And no, I won't provide the links until you have made a good faith gesture of scouring the internet for the good ones. It will be a good exercise in Open minded true-skeptic critical thinking.

I don't care how clear the pictures are. If someone says that they took a picture of an extraterrestrial spacecraft, we need positive, corroborative evidence that the picture is in fact of an extraterrestrial spacecraft. If an independent observer is unable to rule out the possibility that the picture is fake, or unable to confirm that the object in the picture came from outer space, then the picture cannot be used as evidence that extraterrestrial creatures or machines have visited Earth.

 

[JohnG]

There are very clear pics out there. And no, I won't provide the links until you have made a good faith gesture of scouring the internet for the good ones. It will be a good exercise in Open minded true-skeptic critical thinking.

At least Bigfoot believers have gigantopithecus fossils to point to when they say that the blurry, hairy man-shaped object in a photo is a missing link. Nessie believers can point to plesiosaur fossils when they insist that Loch Ness is a real life Jurassic Park.

What's your frame of reference for knowing what extraterrestrial spacecraft look like?

Have you ever read about the origin of the "flying saucer" meme?

Don't worry, I'm not really expecting you to answer those perfectly reasonable questions.

 

[Fudbucker]

I know of Thomas Mantel who got fooled by the planet Venus.


Poisoning the well.


Do you have information otherwise? What was it finally confirmed to be that they saw?


Even without the Drake equation, I accept that the chances of life elsewhere in the universe are as close to 1 as it is to get. We see how tenacious life is and how it can start and then thrive in adverse (to us) conditions.


I have no problem with UFOs. They're unidentified. No problem there. It's when people start identifying them as alien space ships that I pause. Thousands of sightings of what? How many have been confirmed to be alien space ships? And yet that's the favorite go-to identification of UFOnuts.


UFOs are a given. I've seen things in the sky that I couldn't identify. One of them continued to bank until I saw that it was a B2 in Missouri. I don't equate "UFO" with "alien space ship". Only dreamers do that. We know there is intelligent life on this planet. How many other solar systems have we visited?


As explained, the possibility of life elsewhere is virtually 1. We have innumerable examples of life and how it can arise in which conditions. What we don't have is any evidence of the ability to travel faster than light or that any other civilization has visited us. If you have some, please present it.


But string theory is a theory in the scientific sense. Please don't equate a layman's definition of "theory" with that. That is only typical of woo slingers who want somehow to have their pet beliefs equate with scientific theories. It doesn't work that way.


I've already seen good quality ones. Ever since the advent of Photo Shop.

Do you have any that are confirmed to be alien space ships?

Per the bolded part:

Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. In other words, the lack of evidence that aliens have ever visited Earth only counts if A) there's evidence to be found and B) we're good evidence finders.

Is it possible aliens visited 500 million years ago? Went around collecting soil samples and looked at the primitive life forms? Sure. The evidence would be long gone, so the lack of such evidence doesn't count against the possibility of alien visitation having happened (at least in the distant past).

How about lack of evidence for alien visitation in recent times? For the absence of evidence argument to work, one would have to argue that we could detect evidence of an advanced civilization visiting us (for whatever reason). It's not clear to me that humanity has reached the point where our sensors (for lack of a better word) are good enough to detect an advanced civilization that doesn't want to be detected. Much of the universe remains a mystery to us, we're still burning fossil fuels, we haven't even made it to the nearest planet yet (and won't, for awhile). I don't have a whole lot of faith in our detection skills.

The best argument against alien visitation is that faster-than-light (FTL) travel doesn't seem possible. By FTL travel, I mean taking a ship and getting it from point A to point B much faster than a beam of light. Of course, we've thought things were impossible countless times and been proven wrong, so instead we should be more exact about the possibility of FTL travel. FTL travel would upend truths that have been validated for almost a hundred years now. Much of our physics would have to be tossed out the window (or heavily modified) if FTL travel exists, stuff that has been experimentally proven over and over again. So FTL travel seems highly improbable.

Of course, lack of FTL travel wouldn't rule out alien visitation, but it would require the aliens to have a very good reason to come here.

On the other hand, if the hypothetical aliens we're talking about are machine intelligences, the lack of FTL travel might not even matter to them. You can still get around the galaxy at 10% speed of light, if you don't care about long transit times. A machine intelligence could have the whole galaxy mapped out in a pretty short amount of time, with interesting spots (i.e., us) being actively observed.

 

[Fudbucker]

At least Bigfoot believers have gigantopithecus fossils to point to when they say that the blurry, hairy man-shaped object in a photo is a missing link. Nessie believers can point to plesiosaur fossils when they insist that Loch Ness is a real life Jurassic Park.

What's your frame of reference for knowing what extraterrestrial spacecraft look like?

Have you ever read about the origin of the "flying saucer" meme?

Don't worry, I'm not really expecting you to answer those perfectly reasonable questions.

I don't think Jake is claiming to know what extraterrestrial spacecraft look like. That's not a necessary condition for observing extraterrestrial spacecraft and reliably reporting on it. Someone who had never seen a plane before could still tell you something weird is in the sky and reasonably be able to describe it.

UFO believers are better off, epistemologically, than Big Foot believers. The premises for an argument supporting the reasonable possibility of alien visitation aren't really that unbelievable:
A) Out of hundreds of billion of planets, technologically advanced civilizations have developed on at least some of them.
B) Some of these civilizations might be curious enough about the galaxy to explore it (or at least create self-replicating devices that could do the exploration).
C) If FTL travel is possible, then it's reasonably possible a curious technologically advanced civilization is observing us.
D) If FTL travel is impossible, then it's reasonably possible that devices of a curious technologically advanced civilization are observing us.

 

[catsmate]

It's in his journal. He left out the photos because they were blurry and jerky but his first mate stole them and sold them to the paparazzi.

I assume you mean the faint ground level light seen before the ships arrived at Guanahani? Bartolomé de las Casas explained that over five hundred years ago, it was a burning torch used by one of the locals.

 

[JohnG]

What believers in UFOs-as-alien spacecraft don't seem to understand is that skepticism isn't a set of immutable beliefs, it is a process for separating the informational "wheat from the chaff" or the signal from the noise, to apply our limited time and resources to learning something true and ultimately useful.

It's an imperfect process (or at least its practitioners are imperfect) but it's the best process we have to come anywhere close to learning the truth about how this universe really operates.

 

[Donn]

.. the lack of evidence that aliens have ever visited Earth only counts if .. there's evidence to be found..

That doesn't make sense, as written.

Is it possible aliens visited 500 million years ago?

So what? If they landed, had a party, swam in lava and then zipped-off, what of it? The same could be said of Leprechauns (from space) and time-travelling super humans from the future.

How about lack of evidence for alien visitation in recent times? For the absence of evidence argument to work, one would have to argue that we could detect evidence of an advanced civilization visiting us .. I don't have a whole lot of faith in our detection skills.

Again, we could also be missing the Elves in their tight underpants; the ballet dancing ninja elephants; the mega-mind moss; the learned lichen.

You are creating a class of indetectables. It's vast. That dilutes it.

I get what you're saying: we can't know; but it's not a useful state. We know we can't know, so why go there?

Of course, lack of FTL travel wouldn't rule out alien visitation, but it would require the aliens to have a very good reason to come here.

Indeed.

On the other hand, if the hypothetical aliens we're talking about are machine intelligences, the lack of FTL travel might not even matter to them. You can still get around the galaxy at 10% speed of light, if you don't care about long transit times. A machine intelligence could have the whole galaxy mapped out in a pretty short amount of time, with interesting spots (i.e., us) being actively observed.

The lack of side-effects seems to rule this out. There has been no input from the universe into our observations that defies the natural scheme. Unless these machines can move about leaving no trace upon the fabric of reality, they are not there at all.

I suppose we can mention Dark matter and company here. Yeah. I don't know enough to scope it. If these machine exist, they are being super super super stealthy; more than paranoid levels of secret. Strikes me that a machine intelligence which has mapped the universe would be anything but afraid to be seen. I dunno, too much Saberhagen, I suppose.

Someone who had never seen a plane before could still tell you something weird is in the sky and reasonably be able to describe it.

I doubt that! How would they even know what to relate it to? Unless the person they are describing it to has a better idea, there would be little actual communication of worth. For example, how would he know it was a large object very far away, vs. some kind of bird much closer?

UFO believers are better off, epistemologically, than Big Foot believers. The premises for an argument supporting the reasonable possibility of alien visitation aren't really that unbelievable:

What if Bigfoot is what is in the UFOs?

A) Out of hundreds of billion of planets, technologically advanced civilizations have developed on at least some of them.
B) Some of these civilizations might be curious enough about the galaxy to explore it (or at least create self-replicating devices that could do the exploration).
C) If FTL travel is possible, then it's reasonably possible a curious technologically advanced civilization is observing us.
D) If FTL travel is impossible, then it's reasonably possible that devices of a curious technologically advanced civilization are observing us.

One of the things that always occurs to me at this point is: when? When did all this happen? If it was, say 500 years ago, then are they even alive? If it was 72 thousand years ago, are they still alive? Did they rise-up, burn their of fuels, build their own Internet, suddenly get into space and then burn-out in war? Did their sun play along or did it fail? Are they still alive?

It's quite the assumption that they are long-lived and wise as well as interested in us.

I think Bigfoot with Big eyes is just as likely as alien visitation. They both inhabit the same probability space: not impossible and homeopathically certain.

 

[JohnG]

I don't think Jake is claiming to know what extraterrestrial spacecraft look like.

But he kind of is. That's why the prevailing explanation among UFO buffs are that at least some "UFOs" are extraterrestrial spacecraft and not, say, time machines from Earth's future, or demons or fairies or gods or even the advanced aircraft of some hidden human super-civilization currently living in Atlantis. Some believers have even come up with different alien races (e.g., "The Grays" and the "Reptilians") and based on what, exactly?

No one I know of disputes that there are unidentified objects ("flying" or otherwise) in our sky, but when I was a believer in this stuff from childhood into my early 20s, I was convinced that some percentage of what are called "UFOs" were in fact alien spaceships. I certainly thought I knew enough about the subject to look at a photograph and confidently say "that is a photograph of a spaceship from another planet". I somehow doubt that I was alone in the belief.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I believe that "life" as we do (or do not) know it, might well be ubiquitus throughout the universe, but intelligent life, especially intelligent life capable of traveling from one star to the next, is probably rare, perhaps vanishingly so. Speaking as someone who is the biggest fan of Star Trek, Star Wars and Doctor Who that you'll probably ever meet, the idea that we might be alone or at least permanently cut off from other civilizations, depresses me to no end. Then again, I'm still kind of bummed about the whole Santa Claus thing, but for better or worse, I'm just not a "credo consolans" kind of guy. Sometimes I wish I was, but for me at least, belief is not like a light switch that can be turned off and on at will.

C) If FTL travel is possible, then it's reasonably possible a curious technologically advanced civilization is observing us.

And if my grandmother had wheels, it's reasonably possible that she'd be a wagon.

 

[Fudbucker]

That doesn't make sense, as written.



So what? If they landed, had a party, swam in lava and then zipped-off, what of it? The same could be said of Leprechauns (from space) and time-travelling super humans from the future.

This is the problem I have with some skeptics on UFO's. Given the incredibly huge number of planets in the galaxy, technologically advanced civilizations are NOT on par with elves and leprechauns. Quite the opposite. At least a few of them certainly exist, unless you want to claim that Earth inhabits an extremely special place. If that's your claim, I want to see some evidence for that. Nor is it unreasonable to posit an advanced civilization that would have ways of making themselves undetectable to us.

 

[Fudbucker]

But he kind of is. That's why the prevailing explanation among UFO buffs are that at least some "UFOs" are extraterrestrial spacecraft and not, say, time machines from Earth's future, or demons or fairies or gods or even the advanced aircraft of some hidden human super-civilization currently living in Atlantis. Some believers have even come up with different alien races (e.g., "The Grays" and the "Reptilians") and based on what, exactly?

No one I know of disputes that there are unidentified objects ("flying" or otherwise) in our sky, but when I was a believer in this stuff from childhood into my early 20s, I was convinced that some percentage of what are called "UFOs" were in fact alien spaceships. I certainly thought I knew enough about the subject to look at a photograph and confidently say "that is a photograph of a spaceship from another planet". I somehow doubt that I was alone in the belief.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I believe that "life" as we do (or do not) know it, might well be ubiquitus throughout the universe, but intelligent life, especially intelligent life capable of traveling from one star to the next, is probably rare, perhaps vanishingly so. Speaking as someone who is the biggest fan of Star Trek, Star Wars and Doctor Who that you'll probably ever meet, the idea that we might be alone or at least permanently cut off from other civilizations, depresses me to no end. Then again, I'm still kind of bummed about the whole Santa Claus thing, but for better or worse, I'm just not a "credo consolans" kind of guy. Sometimes I wish I was, but for me at least, belief is not like a light switch that can be turned off and on at will.




And if my grandmother had wheels, it's reasonably possible that she'd be a wagon.

Are you that sure FTL travel is impossible? I'm wary of blanket claims like that, especially when we just recently discovered that ordinary matter is about 5% of the universe, and the other 95% is a mystery.

 

[Fudbucker]

That doesn't make sense, as written.

Yes, it does make sense. The lack of evidence of alien visitation only works against the alien visitation hypothesis if one expects aliens to leave evidence of their visit behind AND for us to be able to find and identify such evidence.

For example, the lack of evidence that aliens may have visited Earth a billion years ago counts for very little because we wouldn't expect any evidence to have survived for such a long time.

 

[Donn]

This is the problem I have with some skeptics on UFO's. Given the incredibly huge number of planets in the galaxy, technologically advanced civilizations are NOT on par with elves and leprechauns.

Sure, but that was not my point. It was about those X that might have visited. If there's no evidence, then it may as well be leprechauns. See? No evidence means it's all a fantasy story.

Quite the opposite. At least a few of them certainly exist,

Or they did, once, long ago. Or, they will, one day. There's no need to think there are alien civilizations of any level right now.

Nor is it unreasonable to posit an advanced civilization that would have ways of making themselves undetectable to us.

It's not unreasonable as a device in a story, but if you make then undetectable then you also make them non existent, from our point of view.

So, why go there?

Yes, it does make sense. The lack of evidence of alien visitation only works against the alien visitation hypothesis if one expects aliens to leave evidence of their visit behind AND for us to be able to find and identify such evidence.

Convoluted, but okay. This argument about the distant past only nets you another story. The alien picnic which ended when a T-Rex ate them all. The end.

 

[JohnG]

Are you that sure FTL travel is impossible? I'm wary of blanket claims like that, especially when we just recently discovered that ordinary matter is about 5% of the universe, and the other 95% is a mystery.

I'm not "sure" of anything. Of course there's a possibility that FTL travel is possible, at least as far as I know, but possible <> probable and I'll need more convincing evidence of FTL spaceships than Star Trek reruns. You're wary of "blanket claims"? I'm wary of all claims, but...

It's possible that there's a serial killer hiding under my bed, right now, waiting until I go to sleep to cut my throat. There's certainly nothing paranormal or extraordinary about the possibility. Criminals break into homes and murder the occupants all the time, as far as I know. And yet, despite this possibility, I'm not going to run out of my apartment screaming, I'm not going to call the police, hell, I'm not even going to check under the bed, just to be sure. Why am I risking life and limb in so cavalier a fashion?

The same reason you do. The same reason jakesteele does. The same reason most people do.

I "risk" my life because it is statistically unlikely that there's a killer under my bed and because there's no evidence there's a killer under my bed. In other words, for the time being, at least, I'm going to conduct my life exactly as if there is no killer under my bed...even if there really is a killer under my bed.

If, on the other hand, I come home one rainy night to find my door kicked in and a set of muddy footprints leading to my bedroom, I'll reevaluate my beliefs so fast it will make your head spin. In the meantime, however...

 

[RoboTimbo]

Per the bolded part:

Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. In other words, the lack of evidence that aliens have ever visited Earth only counts if A) there's evidence to be found and B) we're good evidence finders.

I can't disagree with that but that isn't the argument that jakesteele is making. He's saying that there is evidence in blurry photos and anecdotal accounts.

Is it possible aliens visited 500 million years ago? Went around collecting soil samples and looked at the primitive life forms? Sure. The evidence would be long gone, so the lack of such evidence doesn't count against the possibility of alien visitation having happened (at least in the distant past).

Yes, what if? That also isn't what jakesteele is arguing for. Unicorns could have existed 500 million years ago but because they were made entirely of cotton candy, no fossils remain.

How about lack of evidence for alien visitation in recent times? For the absence of evidence argument to work, one would have to argue that we could detect evidence of an advanced civilization visiting us (for whatever reason). It's not clear to me that humanity has reached the point where our sensors (for lack of a better word) are good enough to detect an advanced civilization that doesn't want to be detected. Much of the universe remains a mystery to us, we're still burning fossil fuels, we haven't even made it to the nearest planet yet (and won't, for awhile). I don't have a whole lot of faith in our detection skills.

I mentally substituted the word "aether" and it didn't change your argument.

The best argument against alien visitation is that faster-than-light (FTL) travel doesn't seem possible. By FTL travel, I mean taking a ship and getting it from point A to point B much faster than a beam of light. Of course, we've thought things were impossible countless times and been proven wrong, so instead we should be more exact about the possibility of FTL travel. FTL travel would upend truths that have been validated for almost a hundred years now. Much of our physics would have to be tossed out the window (or heavily modified) if FTL travel exists, stuff that has been experimentally proven over and over again. So FTL travel seems highly improbable.

I'm not arguing that alien visitation can't or hasn't happened. I'm arguing against the "evidence" used to try to prove it.

Of course, lack of FTL travel wouldn't rule out alien visitation, but it would require the aliens to have a very good reason to come here.

On the other hand, if the hypothetical aliens we're talking about are machine intelligences, the lack of FTL travel might not even matter to them. You can still get around the galaxy at 10% speed of light, if you don't care about long transit times. A machine intelligence could have the whole galaxy mapped out in a pretty short amount of time, with interesting spots (i.e., us) being actively observed.

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas.

I'm not arguing against "might have's". UFO proponents don't argue for that. They argue that it's true, here and now, and here's the blurry photos and anecdotal accounts to prove it.

 

[JimOfAllTrades]

Yes, it does make sense. The lack of evidence of alien visitation only works against the alien visitation hypothesis if one expects aliens to leave evidence of their visit behind AND for us to be able to find and identify such evidence.

For example, the lack of evidence that aliens may have visited Earth a billion years ago counts for very little because we wouldn't expect any evidence to have survived for such a long time.

Well, true, but in the absence of that evidence the claim that they did visit counts for just as little.

Less, in fact, if you take into account Occam (no aliens requires no explanation, aliens are an unproven entity that needs to be proved).

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Are you that sure FTL travel is impossible?

As sure as we can be. If FTL travel is possible then so is time travel, and any number of other 'impossible' things that violate the laws of physics. Once you open that door the only limit is your imagination. But the more important question to ask is:- why do you want FTL travel to be possible? Because then you can have your 'advanced alien craft' flitting around the sky causing UFO sightings. IOW, your investment in a silly fantasy is such that you are willing to hand-wave away one of the fundamental laws of the Universe.

But even if FTL travel was possible, it still wouldn't change the fact that people are 'seeing' alien craft where mundane explanations are far more likely. They see them because in our modern world that's the kind of technology we expect to see. 200 years ago there were no UFO sightings because aircraft were not a thing - now it's the only thing we think of when we see a moving 'object' in the sky. So even though flying machines don't violate the laws of physics, if 200 years ago someone claimed to see a jet airliner flying across the sky they would rightly be laughed at.

 

[Fudbucker]

Sure, but that was not my point. It was about those X that might have visited. If there's no evidence, then it may as well be leprechauns. See? No evidence means it's all a fantasy story.

No, this is not true at all. Again, absence of evidence isn't the same as evidence of absence. I have no evidence that you're playing chess right now. That doesn't mean it's fantastical to suppose you might be playing chess as I type this. Correct?

Or they did, once, long ago. Or, they will, one day. There's no need to think there are alien civilizations of any level right now.

There's no reason to think there aren't, either. If there is no evidence for or against a proposition, one must be agnostic.

It's not unreasonable as a device in a story, but if you make then undetectable then you also make them non existent, from our point of view.

LOL, what? Are you claiming that if X is currently undetectable, X should be considered non-existent? That leads to the ridiculous claim that the Higgs Boson should have been considered non-existent, before we figured out how to detect it.