1. Of course, you are welcome to set whatever criteria for evidence you wish.
2. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE tell me, however, that YOU AT LEAST KNOW the FACT that WHEN anyone sets a criteria for proof that something is there too high, they change the possibility of a
TYPE II ERROR
into a probability. And, much higher than that and they change the probability into a virtual CERTAINTY.
My experience on these threads convinced me that the naysayers are into the virtual CERTAINTY category.
They seem to be oblivious that a TYPE II error is potentially just as deadly as a TYPE I error.
3. Many murderer has been convicted and executed on less evidence than exists in the thousands of expert testimony in such cases. It is SHEER FOOLISHNESS to consider such expert testimony as useless, worthless, meaningless, inconsequential, ‘proving nothing.’
I don't discount such expert testimony at all. 60+ years worth of it has made a compelling case for the existence of advanced races of beings operating in our skies.
It always comes back to the lack of hard evidence, though.
I can believe that six decades worth of expert testimony proves the existence of alien visitors, but I still don't know it as a fact.
You ask us to substitute an objective reality for a subjective one, which many, many people are just not willing to do.
Logic tells me that the universe is far too vast for there to only be a single solitary planet that has developed life forms. The famous Drake Equation brilliantly illustrates the absurdity of the "we're all alone" theory.
Still - that doesn't automatically mean that I should accept that some of those life forms have the means to conquer the unimaginable distances involved with interstellar space travel, and are coming here, without some hard evidence.
Frankly, I want to see them with my own two eyes. That's the level of proof required for me to accept that they're here.
Do I believe that extraterrestrials have visited Earth? Yes I do.
Do I know that extraterrestrials have visited this planet? No, I do not.
One of these things is superior to the other. I think we both know which one it is.