Sure, but it will be:
Posted on 06/24/2006 9:27:30 AM PDT by BenLurkin
For decades now, eyes and sky have met to witness the buzzing of our world by Unidentified Flying Objects, termed UFOs or simply flying saucers. Extraterrestrials have come a long way to purportedly share the friendly skies with us.
UFOs and alien visitors are part of our culture—a far-out phenomenon when judged against those "low life" wonders Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster.
And after all those years, as the saying goes, UFOs remain a riddle inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Why so? For one, the field is fraught with hucksterism. It's also replete with blurry photos and awful video. But then there are also well-intentioned and puzzled witnesses [See Top 10 Alien Encounters Debunked].
Scientifically speaking, are UFOs worth keeping an eye on?
Unusual properties
There have been advances in the field of UFO research, said Ted Roe, Executive Director of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP), based in Vallejo, California.
"The capture of optical spectra from mobile, unpredictable luminosities is one of those innovations. More work to be done here but [there are] some good results already."
NARCAP was established in 2000 and is dedicated to the advancement of aviation safety issues as they apply to, what they term Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP).
Roe said that a decade from now, researchers should have even better instrumentation at their disposal and better data on UAP of several varieties. His forecast is that scientific rigor will prevail, demonstrating that there are "stable, mobile, unusual, poorly documented phenomena with quite unusual properties manifesting within our atmosphere," he told SPACE.com.
Paradigm shifting
NARCAP has made the case that some of these phenomena have unusual electromagnetic properties. Therefore, they could disrupt microprocessors and adversely effect avionic systems, Roe explained, and that for those reasons and others UAP should be considered a hazard to safe aviation.
"It is likely that either conclusion will fly in the face of the general assertion that UAP are not real and that there are no undocumented phenomena in our atmosphere," Roe continued. That should open the door, he said, to the realization that there's no good reason to discard outright the possibility that extraterrestrial visitation has occurred and may be occurring.
"Physics is leading to new and potentially paradigm shifting understandings about the nature of our universe and its physical properties," Roe said. "These understandings may point the way towards an acceptance of the probability of interstellar travel and communication by spacefaring races."
Sacred cows to the slaughter
As UFO debunker Robert Sheaffer's web site proclaims, he's "skeptical to the max." He is a fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and a well-known writer on the UFO scene.
Being an equal-opportunity debunker, Sheaffer notes that he refutes whatever nonsense, in his judgment, "stands in the greatest need of refuting, no matter from what source it may come, no matter how privileged, esteemed, or sacrosanct … sacred cows, after all, make the best hamburger."
Sheaffer told SPACE.com, in regards to the cottage industry of UFO promoters, there's a reason there are still so many snake-oil sellers.
"It's because nobody, anywhere, has any actual facts concerning alleged UFOs, just claims. That allows con-men to thrive peddling their yarns," Sheaffer said. "UFO believers are convinced that the existence of UFOs will be revealed 'any day now'. But it's like Charlie Brown and the football: No matter how many times Lucy pulls the football away—or the promised 'disclosure' fails to happen—they're dead-certain that the next time will be their moment of glory."
Trash from the past
"I would have to say that we're stuck in neutral," said Kevin Randle, a leading expert and writer on UFOs and is known as a dogged researcher of the phenomena. There's no real new research, he said, and that's "because we have to revisit the trash of the past."
Randle points to yesteryear stories, one stretching back in time to a supposed 1897 airship crash in Aurora, Texas, long proven to be a hoax by two con men—yet continues to surface in UFO circles.
Then there's the celebrated Thomas Mantell saga, a pilot that lost his life chasing a UFO in 1948. There are those that contend he was killed by a blue beam from a UFO, Randle said "even though we have known for years that the UFO was a balloon and he violated regulations by climbing above 14,000 feet without oxygen equipment. I mean, we know this, and yet there are those who believe that Mantell was killed by aliens."
Randle's advice is to the point: "We need to begin to apply rigorous standards of research … stop accepting what we wish to believe even when the evidence is poor, and begin thinking ahead."
Paucity of physical evidence
"I've no doubt that UFOs are here to stay," said Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. "I'm just not convinced that alien craft are here to stay … or for that matter, even here for brief visits. "First, despite a torrent of sightings for more than a half-century, I can't think of a single, major science museum that has alien artifacts on display," Shostak said. "Contrast this paucity of physical evidence with what the American Indians could have shown you fifty years after Christopher Columbus first violated their sea-space. They could have shown you all sorts of stuff—including lots of smallpox-infested brethren—as proof that they were being 'visited,'" he said.
When it comes to extraterrestrial visitors in the 21st century, the evidence is anecdotal, ambiguous, or, in some cases, artifice, Shostak suggested.
Calling it "argument from ignorance", Shostak pointed to the claim that aliens must have careened out of control above the New Mexico desert simply because some classified government documents sport a bunch of blacked-out text. "How does the latter prove the former?"
Sure, the missing verbiage is consistent with a government cover-up of an alien crash landing, Shostak said. "But it's also consistent with an infinitude of other scenarios…not all of them involving sloppy alien pilots," he added.
Shostak said that it is not impossible that we could be visited. It doesn't violate physics to travel between the stars, although that's not easy to do.
"But really, if you're going to claim—or for that matter, believe—that extraterrestrials are strafing the cities, or occasionally assaulting the neighbors with an aggression inappropriate for a first date, then I urge you to find evidence that leaves little doubt among the professionally skeptical community known as the world of science."
Residue of sightings
Why is there precious little to show that world of science that UFOs merit attention?
"Obviously there is not a simple answer, but part of it is reluctance of the scientific community to support such research," explained Bruce Maccabee, regarded as a meticulous researcher and an optical physicist using those talents to study photographs and video of unexplained phenomena.
Why this reluctance?
"In my humble opinion it is largely a result of 'tradition'…tradition set by the U.S. Air Force in the early years when they publicly stated that everything was under control, they were investigating…and finding nothing that couldn't be explained," Maccabee said.
Nevertheless, Maccabee observed, work on the phenomenon will carry on.
"UFO studies will continue until all the old cases have either been explained or admitted to being unexplainable—meaning a residue of sightings that could be ET related—and/or until people stop seeing unexplainable UFO-like events throughout the world," Maccabee concluded.
Many have been interviewed immediately.
Many others have written their own journal narratives immediately upon the conclusion of their experiences--and WITHOUT hypnonsis.
Things are not yet as predictable as that.
And, I suspect that when these things become common-place, well known, I'll be . . . unavailable . . . occupied intensely or off planet in one way or another.
But by then, you won't need me along for any reason anyway. Such things will be commonly in the skies and the news.
I just don't know when.
And, it's fascinating that government sources in the last year have begun to say they don't believe that it will ever be DISCLOSED--some say at all--some say fully.
I think they are wrong. We shall see.
Okie dokie, then.
If something is there, I want to hit it with a hammer, look at it under a microscope, weigh it, and determine what it is.
If I can't do that, it's indistinguishable from an overactive imagination.
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Ahhh, I think this is a major difference.
Dimmer switches are fine for me. I don't have to have the light 100% on or 100% off to tell the difference between no light and some light.
And, I think such an insistance on all or nothing in such matters of discrimminating between realities, evidence facts and factors . . . .
to be very unscientific, illogical and unwise.
But, it's a common Evangelical Fundamentalist stance. So, am pretty familiar with such a stance. Used to be overwhelmingly that way on a number of issues myself.
If there were really UFOs out there, they would have conquered us and either enslaved us or eaten us.
You don't let the competition develop to a position where they can threaten you.
That's why we're so concerned about Iran.
And you take even less chances with some alien species.
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Sounds like that all or nothing thinking again, to me.
Or perhaps unimaginative. There are a number of logical possibilities otherwise.
We all go through life doing what seems right to us. Everyone's mileage varies.
I want firm answers before I declare I believe in something. Others don't require that.
It's a personality issue, and possibly a faith issue. Doesn't make you wrong or right. Just makes you different from me.
We all go through life doing what seems right to us. Everyone's mileage varies.
I want firm answers before I declare I believe in something. Others don't require that.
It's a personality issue, and possibly a faith issue. Doesn't make you wrong or right. Just makes you different from me.
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VERY WELL SAID. Thanks.
BTW, I rather enjoy/like you, too.
OK.
I'll bite.
What is a TYPE II error?
I think another name for it is sanity.
I suspect one can't see something if they don't expect it to be there.
It's like love.
I can't prove it exists, but I know it does.
Person B, not expecting a flying saucer, is much less likely to see a saucer when faced with an unknown or ambiguous visual stimulus.
Absolutely yuck!
I'm just glad I haven't met one.
;-)
Agreed. Yuck.
Did you find the def of TYPE II ERROR yet?
Post # . . . 114
TYPE II ERROR = BELIEF THAT NOTHING IS THERE, WHEN, IN FACT, SOMETHING !IS! THERE.
TYPE I = belief that something is there WHEN, IN FACT, NOTHING is there.
It can get tricky with the null hypothesis putting it into English and keeping it straight.
js1138--are you always so sweet, kind and lauditory regarding those who have a different construction on reality than yours?
We all have our limits. My limit is about one of your threads per year.
What type of error is it to build an entire, detailed mythology around the miscellaneous observations of unidentified phenomena?
No, Ben, I don't think so.
Many people are out for afternoons or evenings driving or having a picnic or doing other recreational things where they expect absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Most people seeing UFO's--especially up close and personal--expected nothing of the kind--actually--nothing at all.
They weren't star gazing. They weren't looking for airplanes in the sky. They weren't bird watching. They weren't looking at clouds and labeling them. They weren't looking for contrails. They weren't really paying much attention to the sky at all--until more or less forced to--by the shadow or huge image or what have you of the UFO looming into their field of vision.
WHEN SOMETHING TAKES OUT 40-70% OF THE VISUAL FIELD, IT'S A BIT HARD TO IGNORE. All the more so when such a huge something is SILENT and LESS than 300-500 feet away.
Sometimes, in quite a number of cases, the distance to the underside of the craft directly overhead of the viewer is less than 100 feet. I believe there are some cases of teens throwing rocks at such a close overhead craft and either hitting the craft or hitting some kind of force field close to the craft.
You can call that swamp gas if you wish. I wouldn't dare insult them so.
When a large craft like that is close enough to see small details of the underside . . . mentally filling in fuzzy distant images with a wild imagination just doesn't cut it as an explanation.
And to assert that it does is a very different kind of hubris than I want anything to do with.
And, reportedly in some to most flight modes, the propulsion physics have such a light bending effect that sharp photographs are highly problematic at best.
We all have our limits. My limit is about one of your threads per year.
What type of error is it to build an entire, detailed mythology around the miscellaneous observations of unidentified phenomena?
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1. I don't recall showing up at your doorstep--via UFO or otherwise--and holding a gun to your head to read one of "my" threads.
2. The Scroll buttons and page down buttons on most functioning computers work well. I don't recall cutting your hands off so short you couldn't use yours.
3. "What type of error is it to build an entire, detailed mythology"
Evidently You are 1,000% convinced that your construction on reality has 0.000000% mythology involved in it.
I'm of a very different opinion regarding your construction on reality.
We all see through a glass darkly. None of us have it 100% correct.
From what I've seen, I'll stack my interpretation of complex, mysterious, puzzling, confusing, paradoxical, black ops etc. phenomena up against yours most any day. Time will tell who has predicted most accurately about "objective" reality--as though there were such.
4. "around the miscellaneous observations"
I suppose it depends on one's definition of "miscellaneous."
The phenomena no longer fit that definition, to me. There are pretty rigorous lists of criteria at various organizations for classifying all kind of UFO type phenomena. And, there's a growing movement afoot to collect forensics type evidence from sites, including abductions.
You use "miscellaneous" dismissively. Doesn't fit the phenomena to use it as you do. I realize that you don't seem all that concerned with fitting your words or notions to the objective facts of the phenomena but one can hope--however vainly.
5 "of unidentified phenomena?"
Even "unidentified" is becoming and interesting word in terms of the phenomena. Craft are being categorized and labeled with improving precision. ET body types are being categorized and labeled with improving precision. Smells and other features of the interiors of large craft are being categorized and labeled with improving precision.
There's an increasing effort to learn distinctions, if there are and most experts think there are, between USA built and operated craft vs bona fide ET similar type craft. And, folks are trying to start pinning down black ops disinformation human abductions of people pretending to be ET's abducting people vs ET's really abducting people.
But, hey, enjoy your construction on reality. I'm sure it helps you sleep better at nights than some abductees do.
I do encourage you to broaden your horizons; expand your perceptive skills and discrimmination skills and maximize your capacity to handle ambiguity and complexity. Increasingly in this era, such expansions of one's conscioiusness and personhood may be critical to living sanely in anything remotely close to balance . . . and may even end up being crucial in determining the difference between issues, facts, factors in various situations such that one can continue living vs being wiped out needlessly in such convoluted complexities.
And, all-in-all, I'd much rather you live as long as possible.
Sure, but it will be:
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