Ok thanks! I guess we will have to agree to disagree for now. I would be curious to see any supporting documentation you may have for your point 1, if you have the time and are so inclined. Specifically, who is “they” and (this is the more important part of the question) how do you know that “they” can do the things you claim? Again, if you are so inclined, supporting documentation is requested here, not merely a reiteration of past claims.
A word if I may about points 2-6. Even without supporting documentation, I believe they show a flaw in your reasoning, with all due respect. That is, even if they are true, it is of little consequence, because it is entirely possible that people with extensive credentials and/or social notoriety may suffer from either mental defect, or human error that leads to false conclusion. In other words, no matter how educated the man, it is entirely possible that he can be wrong about something, even something he claims happened to him. This is also true of anyone who is “slightly significantly more healthy than the general population” and/or “...as an averaged aggregate also slightly significantly smarter than the average of the general population”. Physical fitness and/or intelligence do not necessarily prohibit the possibility of mental illness and/or perceptive error (human error). Indeed, I believe many studies have shown conclusively that many who suffer from mental defects of a wide variety usually test above average intelligence.
Thus, my comparison of the subset of the world population that claims extraterrestrial encounters to the world population as a whole is valid. It is valid because the socioeconomic/educational/intelligence/physical fitness status of a witness is not relevant in determining veracity, even for murder witnesses. What is relevant is corroborating evidence, and such corroborating evidence can only come from two sources (IMO): One, clear, irrefutable scientific evidence that can take many forms including but not limited to, photographic, chemical, or biological evidence that no reasonable person could refute. Or, two, personal experience (as I have pointed out before on unrelated topics). I do not believe you personally are claiming to have had an extraterrestrial/UFO encounter, thus you can only corroborate, not only to convince others, but also yourself (again IMO), the many hundreds (thousands, 10’s of thousands, however many you have) of witness accounts you have collected in 45 years with clear, irrefutable scientific evidence as described above.
In other words, if you wish to claim you are being reasonable, not only to people you are trying to convince with your posts (which is why you are posting in the first place, I can only assume), but also yourself, you must have either had a personal experience of your own to corroborate the witness testimonies you have found in 45 years, or, you must have independent scientific evidence, and apparently you have neither.
This is the only reasonable approach to this issue, again, IMO. It seems to me it is not your definition of reasonableness, which is both your and my right, which is why I said we should at this point agree to disagree. I do not see how this will ever be resolved, given the circumstances reality dictates to us as previously described.
Sorry, I don’t know that I’ll come up with the data evidence. This distillation is over too many decades.
Stupidly, I only began compiling links this week. Silly me.
and
and
would be good places to begin such a search.
Of course it boils down to whether one trusts testimony, or not.
I agree brilliance can still be stupid, ignorant and wrong.
HOWEVER, you state:
What is relevant is corroborating evidence, and such corroborating evidence can only come from two sources (IMO): One, clear, irrefutable scientific evidence that can take many forms including but not limited to, photographic, chemical, or biological evidence that no reasonable person could refute. Or, two, personal experience (as I have pointed out before on unrelated topics).
1. There are more than 3,000 trace elements cases that have been verified to have an ‘other’ origin through rigorous scientific analysis of UFO landing sites. The presentation is above average convincing, to me.
2. I’m asserting that above average healthy and above average bright folks in the 10’s of thousands have corroborated the same distilled list of facts about the phenomena over the last 60 years. Even Occam’s famous razor would have a difficult time finding a DIFFERENT explanation THAN THE ONES OFFERED, for those 10’s of thousands of DISCONNECTED, WIDELY DIVERSE corroborating reports from the hills of the Ande’s to Moscow to China to Australia’s outback etc.
3. You are also leaving out God’s inputs into my study and analysis.
4. Throw in my relative and the surprising number of world class experts on the topic whom I’ve been blessed to be able to chat with at length . . .
I’m not the least bit concerned that I’m greatly wrong in my tentative conclusions.