You missed my point about "pilot error" then. Pilots make mistakes just like any other human. If a pilot crashes an airplane, even with dozens of years of experience, because of a simple error, what makes his observational skills so perfect? I can give you all sorts of observations by skilled pilots that were errors in observation. The recent release of some British UFO records showed one event where Tornado pilots thought they saw an advanced aircraft fly over them. It turned out to be reentering space debris. Why did those experienced pilots make such an error?
Of course pilots can make mistakes. But the professional ones make far fewer than amateurs or they wouldn’t be flying 747s and F-14s. They are right way, way, way more times than they are wrong.
This is the problem. You can't tell which is reliable and which is not. You can't pick and choose therefore you have to question (i.e. express skepticism) the reports that appear exotic. It is more likely they are mistaken and not an accurate observation. When a potential explanation surfaces, then it should be considered likely. In the case of the Tornado pilots, it appeared to be a good UFO report of something truly exotic. However, it happened at the same time as the re-entering space debris.
Of course you question reports that are exotics. You use objective skepticism on them as well as any other type of sightings or evidences. And, of course, when a potential explanation surfaces it should be considered as a possibility in descending order of plausibility. But if all your mundane possibilities don’t pan out and the only thing you have left is an exotic, then you must give that serious, due deliberation just like any of the others, especially when you have credible witnesses attesting to the fact.
Occam’s Beard – the simplest explanation is not always the best.
However, if your testimony states the person had a rifle and the actual weapon was a handgun, your testimony is suspect. In the case of UFO reports it is not a matter of questioning if the witness saw something but how they interpreted what they saw.
Military pilots go through all kinds of training like Instrument Comprehension, Cyclic Orientation, Spatial Apperception, Electrical Mazes, airplane silhouette identification and recognition, etc.
Again, it is all a matter of interpretation of each event. We
can dance around this all day but pilots and policemen are not much better at observations than most other people. When Dr. Hynek (sometimes called the "Galileo" of modern UFOlogy) looked at the bluebook data, he discovered that pilots made more mistakes than other types of observers. He stated:
"What we have here is a good example of a well-known psychological fact: "transference" of skill and experience does not usually take place. That is, an expert in one field does not necessarily "transfer" his competence to another one" (Hynek The UFO report p. 261).
See below where a much more fleshed out overview of Hynek.
If you want to describe a specific event we can go into that. However, the generic claim of pilots being infallible observers is not accurate. It has been shown time and time again to be false.
Who said they were infallible? What kind of pilots? I said there are many pilots, like commercial or military, that make for highly credible experts, more so than amateur astronomers; professional > amateur.
It’s like you’re saying that an experienced hunting guide in Alaska will observe no more of his surroundings in the woods that the green horn, city slicker who hired him.
Have you never heard of the term, ‘trained observer’? Somehow Amateur astronomers who look at the skies, as the likes of Phil Plait would say, an ‘inordinate amount of time’ and give the answers that you need for your reality map, you consider them totally credible witnesses that you don’t doubt or question.
But when it comes to highly skilled and experienced pilots, whose job is the skies and everything up there with them, you consider them no more credible than Joe Blow from Anywhere, USA.
If you have an artist giving his opion that the twin towers were brought down with C-4 instead of the planes, then, yeah, your idea of ‘transference’ works.
Are you telling me that all the training I’ve already listed about pilots being intensively trained does not make them better at observation, doesn’t do them any more good than if they had played hooky from class and gone fishing instead? Why does the Air Force waste time and money on classes like airplane silhoutette identification?
You’re not looking for an explanation as to what it is out of scientific curiosity and the advancement of science, rather, you’re looking for a mundane explanation for the sole reason of debunkery. In other words, it’s more important to you to disprove UFOs at any cost, sometimes going to absurd extremes like Joe Nickell by stretching credibility to the breaking point, than it is to weigh and asses the evidence carefully, being concerned where the evidence takes you. You are emotionally predisposed to debunk at any cost. That is the definition of subjective criticism.
Fleshed out Hynek:
Another shift in Hynek's opinions came after conducting an informal poll of his astronomer colleagues in the early 1950s. Among those he queried was Dr. Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered the dwarf planet Pluto.
Of 44 astronomers, five (over 11 percent) had seen aerial objects that they could not account for with established, mainstream science. Most of these astronomers had not widely shared their accounts for fear of ridicule or of damage to their reputations or careers (Tombaugh was an exception, having openly discussed his own UFO sightings). Hynek also noted that this 11% figure was, according to most polls, greater than those in the general public who claimed to have seen UFOs. Furthermore, the astronomers were presumably more knowledgeable about observing and evaluating the skies than the general public, so their observations were arguably more impressive.
Hynek was also distressed by what he regarded as the dismissive or arrogant attitude of many mainstream scientists towards UFO reports and witnesses.
Early evidence of the shift in Hynek's opinions appeared in 1953, when Hynek wrote an article for the April 1953 issue of The Journal of the Optical Society of America titled "Unusual Aerial Phenomena," which contained what would become perhaps Hynek's best known statement:
"Ridicule is not part of the scientific method, and people should not be taught that it is. The steady flow of reports, often made in concert by reliable observers, raises questions of scientific obligation and responsibility. Is there ... any residue that is worthy of scientific attention? Or, if there isn't, does not an obligation exist to say so to the public—not in words of open ridicule but seriously, to keep faith with the trust the public places in science and scientists?" (Emphasis in original)[4]
the essay was very carefully worded: Hynek never states that UFOs are an extraordinary phenomenon. But it is clear that, whatever his own views,
Hynek was increasingly distressed by what he saw as the superficial manner most scientists looked at UFOs.
When the UFO reports continued at a steady pace, Hynek devoted some time to studying the reports and determined that some were deeply puzzling, even after considerable study.
He once said, "As a scientist I must be mindful of the past; all too often it has happened that matters of great value to science were overlooked because the new phenomenon did not fit the accepted scientific outlook of the time."
In a 1985 interview, when asked what caused his change of opinion, Hynek responded, "Two things, really.
One was the completely negative and unyielding attitude of the Air Force. They wouldn't give UFOs the chance of existing, even if they were flying up and down the street in broad daylight. Everything had to have an explanation. I began to resent that, even though I basically felt the same way, because I still thought they weren't going about it in the right way. You can't assume that everything is black no matter what.
Secondly, the caliber of the witnesses began to trouble me. Quite a few instances were reported by military pilots, for example, and I knew them to be fairly well-trained, so this is when I first began to think that, well, maybe there was something to all this."
