Let us take the legal paradigm and put it into the world of the UFO. Let us suppose that a "crashed disc" is brought before the nation. It looks for all the world like a Flying Saucer. Let us suppose further that it REALLY IS a Flying Saucer! What would make it real to the public at large? Would seeing it on TV be enough? No, it would not. The thing could be fake, right? Hollywood can make anything look real these days.
No, it would be a statement of strangeness given by a figure in authority that would make that "crashed disc" real. The artifact in itself is NOT sufficient. A human being in authority has to PROCLAIM a mute physical thing to be what he believes it to be! That puts it into the human system, that's the proof! This is the absolute core of the issue.
In the modern world a thing is not necessarily what it IS but what someone in authority SAYS it is. The rest of us must then take the word of this authority about the "reality" of any artifact or process. We, just like a jury at trial, have to take someone else's word about nearly everything. The only question is: whose word are we going to take?
In 1954 I saw a large, diamond-shaped object go over my five-year-old head. My best estimate is that this object was some hundreds of feet across and several thousand feet above me. I did not see it close to the horizon but had a sudden urge to look straight, and I mean straight, up--to the zenith. I had to bend over backwards to do this. Then and only then did I see this thing. It made no sound and was cruising smoothly and rapidly under a solid overcast. It frightened me deeply.
For me, this event is experience--beyond proof. I am a witness. The questions are:
1) Do YOU believe me?
2) Does my sighting resonate emotionally with you?
3) Does it fit in with what you believe to be the "reality" of the current human situation?
Or is it emotional anathema to you and you want to send me a sharp note of protest, telling me that my mental processes must be defective?
To you my sighting is a "story,"
INDEED. SO IS MUCH OF THE REST OF THE WORLD! LOL.
Which is one reason it's brazenly, blazingly obvious that the naysayer's contentions are 99.9999% hypocrisy from the git-go.
The Three Arenas Of Proof: 2) Scientific "Proof"
The following is a quote from a letter I recently received: "Ufology ought to be a scientific study of a legitimately puzzling phenomenon." You see, I just can't agree with that. In my opinion, "Ufology" can never be truly "scientific." This is because of the nature of science and the probable nature of the "UFO." If in fact the "UFO" represents another intelligence of some kind then the fundamental assumptions of "science" and "scientists" are null and void. These assumptions are:
<[Quix emphases]:
1) The universe is "objective" (totally [100%] material, in effect, dead) and knowable with [100%] certainty by human beings, i.e., by scientists, who are the most, [loftiest, purest, smartest, most secularly saintly . . . ] "human."
[Quix emphases]:
2) The scientific method is the best way to study the universe and its language is quantification--mathematics. The ideal here is the "hard, physical evidence" that can be deemed "proof" by the ultra[SUPER SELF-RIGHTEOUS AND PRISSY OF THE--SO CALLED--"materialists" of the world of science.
3) The highest form of "science" therefore is physics, the most provable, with chemistry a strong second.
But if the UFO is not "objective," if instead it is under the control of an agency equal or superior in intelligence to humans, then the UFO is not necessarily knowable at all, let alone knowable with certainty. Science assumes that humans are at the top of the universal brain chain. Science has not really looked at what it might mean if we are not.