Monza
Alta Viro
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2005
- Messages
- 2,307
Last night I watched a documentary called The Phoenix Lights... We Are Not Alone which covers the mass UFO sighting over Arizona on March 13, 1997. Having lived in Phoenix at the time I thought this would be an interesting film. Within the first few minutes I knew I was in trouble when both Gary Shwartz and Edgar Mitchell made an appearance.
It turns out the film was produced by a woman named Lynne D. Kitei who was a witness and wrote a book on the subject. So it is not a documentary simply covering the cold hard facts, it is definitely geared toward the believers. The interviews are fairly one-sided. Countering arguments are given some attention, but they are presented as straw-man arguments by the believers. There are no interviews with anyone of a different opinion.
As such, the film is a good lesson in logical fallacies. For example, there is quite a bit of "argument from ignorance". One man runs down the list of possibilities that he could think of and rejected, thus coming to the conclusion of alien spacecraft. Another man states that if only 1/10 of 1% of sightings can't be explained, that is enough because it only takes one. He ignores his own assertion that by definition it can't be explained therefore it may still be flares, or airplanes, or anything else ordinary.
But perhaps my favorite quote was the following (sorry, I don't remember who it was that said it): "I like Occam's Razor; The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. It was an extraterrestrial spacecraft." I laughed out loud at that point.
I noticed a few silly editing mistakes. For example, someone was talking about how all of the lights were in a perfectly straight line. The shot then cut to video footage showing the lights in anything but a straight line. Later someone talks about how three of the lights formed a perfect triangle. The shot shown over this did not show lights making an equilateral triangle (which is what I assumed is meant by a "perfect" triangle).
The first half of the film is mostly brief snippets of interviews of witnesses. It is interesting to note that no one claimed to have seen anything other than lights. No actual craft was seen. Many of the witnesses assumed that the multiple lights were part of a single craft. And many claimed to be able to gauge the size of the craft (over a mile long) despite the lack of comparative objects.
The second half of the film moved away from documentary interviews and started in on the philosophical woo aspects. There was much talk of the intelligence many felt the lights possessed, how the aliens are here to help, they are worried about us destroying our planet, etc.
I love documentaries and don't always feel they have to come to a conclusion. It is enough to just reports the facts and let people of varying opinions have their say. This is not that type of film. While not as bad as What the Bleep Do We Know? or The Secret, it is still a film by believers and for believers. As I said earlier, the best part is the practice it allows one to identify logical fallacies.
It turns out the film was produced by a woman named Lynne D. Kitei who was a witness and wrote a book on the subject. So it is not a documentary simply covering the cold hard facts, it is definitely geared toward the believers. The interviews are fairly one-sided. Countering arguments are given some attention, but they are presented as straw-man arguments by the believers. There are no interviews with anyone of a different opinion.
As such, the film is a good lesson in logical fallacies. For example, there is quite a bit of "argument from ignorance". One man runs down the list of possibilities that he could think of and rejected, thus coming to the conclusion of alien spacecraft. Another man states that if only 1/10 of 1% of sightings can't be explained, that is enough because it only takes one. He ignores his own assertion that by definition it can't be explained therefore it may still be flares, or airplanes, or anything else ordinary.
But perhaps my favorite quote was the following (sorry, I don't remember who it was that said it): "I like Occam's Razor; The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. It was an extraterrestrial spacecraft." I laughed out loud at that point.
I noticed a few silly editing mistakes. For example, someone was talking about how all of the lights were in a perfectly straight line. The shot then cut to video footage showing the lights in anything but a straight line. Later someone talks about how three of the lights formed a perfect triangle. The shot shown over this did not show lights making an equilateral triangle (which is what I assumed is meant by a "perfect" triangle).
The first half of the film is mostly brief snippets of interviews of witnesses. It is interesting to note that no one claimed to have seen anything other than lights. No actual craft was seen. Many of the witnesses assumed that the multiple lights were part of a single craft. And many claimed to be able to gauge the size of the craft (over a mile long) despite the lack of comparative objects.
The second half of the film moved away from documentary interviews and started in on the philosophical woo aspects. There was much talk of the intelligence many felt the lights possessed, how the aliens are here to help, they are worried about us destroying our planet, etc.
I love documentaries and don't always feel they have to come to a conclusion. It is enough to just reports the facts and let people of varying opinions have their say. This is not that type of film. While not as bad as What the Bleep Do We Know? or The Secret, it is still a film by believers and for believers. As I said earlier, the best part is the practice it allows one to identify logical fallacies.
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