Ron Away
Paranormal Adept
You make some valid points.My only query would be,why would my experience be possibly down to my social or psychological state? or am I missing your point on this?
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A Troubling Observation About UFO Reality
- Thread starter Gene Steinberg
- Start date
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Randall
J. Randall Murphy
I hope you won't mind then if I interject on a few of those points.
The usefulness of the ufology lies in the hands of the user, so if the user finds no value in it, it's because they haven't treated it in a useful manner.
The starting point for what exactly? Let's see how that distills down: Before a "reporting experiencer" files a UFO report, logically some sort of reporting mechanism needs to be in place, and logically for that to happen, those who are studying the reports need to have some idea about what is meant by the term UFO, and to figure that out we have to go back to the beginning of the case studies in the Modern Era of Ufology, where we find that first witnesses in the best cases describe what appear to be alien craft that were dubbed "Flying Saucers".
Studies of those reports mounted until the common factors in the most reliable reports all indicated some sort of alien craft. The engineers and scientists tasked with evaluating what the craft were, concluded that they were probably extraterrestrial. So way back at the beginning, the "reported experience and the reporting experiencer" were the starting point and the resulting studies by experts at the time, before the ETH had become the dominant hypothesis concluded that UFOs are probably extraterrestrial.
Continued investigations based on "reported experience, and the reporting experiencer", continued to add weight to the idea that UFOs are craft. This is all well documented in ufology history, so we don't need to reinvent the wheel here by starting all over again as if we don't know what's been going on. We do. Alien craft have been reported by numerous witnesses. Maybe they're not ET, but even if they're not, that still makes them no less alien to our civilization.
As an aside I would point out that officials beleived that: "The phenomenon is something real and not visionary or fictitious." Apart from that, everything has a "social or psychological aspect" to it, so what is the point of mentioning it. Perhaps you could elaborate a bit there?
There's such a huge difference between UFOs and ghosts in terms of logical possibility that the two are far from being a fair comparison. As mentioned several times here and in other threads, there is nothing unscientific or illogical about the possibility of intelligent life on other worlds or the possibility that such life could develop craft that could make the voyage to our world. In contrast, the concept of life after death is logically impossible and there is no scientific basis to consider that it even might be possible. Additionally, with UFOs, we're dealing with thousands of reports that describe some sort of alien craft, and in some reports, such craft have been tracked on radar, touched, and even been boarded. These are all excellent reasons to conclude that the core subject matter is indeed centered on the idea of alien craft that are as material as the bus you ride or the car you drive.
Again, ghosts are an entirely different concept than UFOs. UFOs were seriously investigated by independent technically capable specialists, some of them scientists, within the USAF for over 20 years. No official U.S. government agency investigates things that don't exist for over 20 years, and the insider accounts of what was really going on barely scratch the surface, yet they are more than enough to tell that some reports were of alien craft, and those are what we call UFOs. To write those accounts and studies off as "cultural baggage" would be wholly irresponsible from a research standpoint.
Strange lights in the sky do not meet the definition of a UFO. The word UFO is a term that is specific to ufology, which is a specific field of interest. I suggest you take the time to read the word history and the official definitions from the people who created the word. The paper is in my signature link below. You'll need a real PC to view it properly. If you have any objections to the evidence presented there, then by all means present a better case. Otherwise, please learn to use the terminology from the field accurately rather than making the same mistakes as those who are unfamiliar with the subject matter, and who as a consequence muddy the waters.
I'm certainly not one to suggest that any particular experience or phenomena should be ignored. However I do advocate critical thinking, and that means discerning one type of experience from another based on the content of those experiences and then looking for evidence and considering logical possibilities that might explain them. When we do that objectively, we find that for reasons already stated, the nature of ufology is entirely different than the nature of ghosts and other paranormal phenomena, and we simply have to accept that fact, or else we're choosing the path of wilful ignorance.
Try not to forget that people have been seriously studying ufology now for over half a century and it's not like anyone hasn't considered your points before. So it might not seem like it at first, but the answers I'm providing do address your root concerns ( and they are valid concerns ). The answers just need to be looked at in their full and intended context and with adequate knowledge of the field. This takes more time and study than the average person has put into the subject matter, but if you are willing to go there, and take it in a slow orderly fashion, I'm confident that you'd get the picture.
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Ravensfee
Paranormal Maven
I've read it several times before and I'm not going to read it again as I found it less illuminating or useful than you seem to think I should. That's not surprising; you engage in "critical thinking" and I'm merely someone who "muddy the waters".
You believe "alien visitation is real" and have constructed an approach to this subject, it appears to me, based on strict semantic interpretations and some leaps of logic that I just can't follow (obviously I have not put enough time or study into this subject). That, of course, is your right. As it is my right to ignore your definitions or supposed "facts" if I find them wrong or without use and I'm happy to suffer your condescension in doing so.
And that's where I shall leave this, as I said I'm not trying to convince or convert. Not only because I don't have the time, I have a small child trying to attract my attention as I type this, but because discussing people's beliefs is never very productive. Especially, I find, those beliefs that have managed to disguise themselves in the holder's mind as a scientific or rational approach.
Thank you, genuinely, for your thought provoking words.
Trajanus
Paranormal Adept
Right we laymen don't have any. Credible witnesses reported the discovery and coverup of unusual material, obviously technological and unlike any Earthly technology, in 1947, and on at least one other occasion.
But we know sentient life can arise on a planet, or we wouldn't be here. Is sentient life known to appear in any other context, like some ghostly otherdimensional realm? Furthermore we now know that planets are extremely common throughout the Universe--so numerous it's statistically almost certain others are habitable.
Oh btw, while publicly known evidence for advanced sentient life is presently meager at best, there are already some tantalizing hints. Like the aperiodic dimming of a star, conceivably due to a massive artificial structure, and the presence of mid IR energy in some galaxies.
William Strathmann
Paranormal Adept
Ufology, presumably you actually do know that no one has demonstrated how unicellular life arose on earth by natural means?!
There are various guesses about abiogenesis, but none has prevailed. Even the RNA world hypothesis, which edged out DNA world and protein world, has problems. Francis Crick, of double-helix DNA fame, got to the point of simply ignoring the abiogenesis problem. But that did not stop him from speculating that unicellular life was purposely sent out into the universe by intelligent agents unknown, and that some of their algae supposedly arrived on earth – i.e. directed panspermia. So, just to reiterate:
Abiogenesis, i.e. unicellular life arising by purely materialistic means, is unexplained by science.
That means that your pronouncements about the scientific soundness of life arising elsewhere, eventually becoming intelligent and then developing technology and traveling to earth is solely speculation, and is not based on empirical science.
On top of that, the vast majority of the scientific establishment discounts the idea that earth is currently being visited by alien craft. You claim scientific credibility for alien craft, but the science establishment denies this hypothesis. If, according to Big Science, the view your hold is unscientific, then you might consider toning down your "scientific credibility" shtick. Instead you'll have to actually support your claims with compelling evidence.
Then on the other hand, with all that's now being discovered about the quantum world underlying our macro perception of reality, there may be direct linkage between the "normal" world and what is relegated as "paranormal." Perhaps.
By the way, for future reference, it would probably help focus the discussion if a specific collection of sighting reports, or some general review, by whomever, is taken for discussion. Otherwise, one person might relate to sighting reports that others reject, and vice-versa. Condon Report? Nicap? MUFON for 2015? Davenport? Passport to Magonia? I wouldn't have a good idea.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
If that's how you insist on interpreting my response, then go ahead and "suffer the condescension" rather than providing couterpoint for your position that might help myself and others advance to your obviously superior level of comprehension
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Randall
J. Randall Murphy
The scientific acceptance of the possibility of life on other worlds and interstellar travel is a fact. Don't even bother trying to deny it because it will just undermine your credibility. The branch of science that deals with the possibility of life on other worlds is exobiology also known as astrobiology. One such scientist was Carl Sagan. The primary endeavor that deals with the possibility of interstellar travel is aerospace engineering, and like exobiology, it involves scientists from a number of disciplines. A ufologist and nuclear physicist who actually worked on nuclear propulsion is Stanton Friedman.
Also, I have never made the claim that alien visitation has been scientifically proven. So please don't imply that I have. I'll restate my position here again: So far as I know, there is no publicly available scientifically valid material evidence that is sufficient to convince the majority of the scientific establishment that alien visitation is real. I do however make the claim that there is sufficient non-material evidence and logically sound reasons, to justify my ( and others ) belief in alien visitation, and in that context, I unabashedly make the claim that alien visitation is real within the context of how that phrase is interpreted, that being that the word "alien" implies, but does not necessitate ET.
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Jeff Davis
Paranormal Adept
This is a political and thoroughly meaningless statement if ever there were one. As an arguing point, it's as empty as a bucket minus it's bottom. You can literally make this claim about nearly anything one can imagine as being possible. One could and can make the precise same claim that 100% of the reality that is built of human experiential knowledge is holographic in nature, and that the entirety of physicalism is nothing but mass accepted delusion. And here's the REAL thing, there *is* far more evidence in seriously postulated, equated, and reviewed scientifically modeled numbers for that "fact", than there is to support the theory that advanced INTELLIGENT life could arise elsewhere in the universe, attain what is for us a scientific impossibility, and come here like a diverse multitude of vacationing tourists with nothing better to do than visit the zoo human while poking at us with their cosmic nonsense sticks. Hogwash.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Finally someone who wants to get on with the good stuff
The obvious answer is to provoke silly forum debates ... LOL
Any other ideas?
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Simple denial isn't valid counterpoint. You'll need to provide more substance if you want your opinion to carry any weight. It might also help if it were at least partially defensible. Scientific acceptance is something that has plenty of meaning, especially among scientists and scientific skeptics.
"Over one million papers about scientific research are published in scientific journals worldwide annually. To get a paper published, scientists submit their research findings to a journal, which sends them out to be assessed for competence, significance and originality, by independent qualified experts who are researching and publishing work in the same fiel (peers)." Source - Peer Review And The Acceptance Of New Scientific Ideas
Scientific acceptance also matters to some researchers of subject matter that is scientifically questionable or outright rejected by the scientific establishment. Plus it has relevance within this forum where issues of the paranormal are discussed. So simply because you find no meaning in the issue of scientific acceptance doesn't mean it has no meaning for others. Lastly, if you're just being provocative for the purpose of starting a flame war, you'll have to do much better than that. Seriously, "empty as a bucket minus it's bottom". That's not even grammatically correct ... LOL. Surely you can do better
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boomerang
Paranormal Adept
In formulating theses for the phenomenon, one confronts a kind of "seminal bifurcation" in the flowchart of possible explanations early on. It is a sort of fork in the muse's road. One may presume that some elite human agency--governmental or otherwise--is hoarding evidence of and possible answers to--the nature of UFOs which would account for its being a kind of black hole of confusion in the public mind. If this is the case, then perhaps there is hope of granting the UFO some manner of ontology. That is, of moving publications on the subject from the catch-all "paranormal" section of the library stacks to some tangible category based on evidence that would place it in a category. Any category !
This approach sounds good at first. But like attempts to make Newtonian sense of modern particle physics, it takes us to places with almost as many strange questions and irrational behaviors as the UFO itself. We are confronted with the so-called "breakaway civilization" in which human agencies have been, for over sixty years, possessed of the almost magical ability to seamlessly partition hard evidence and advanced scientific study from the worldwide general public. This kind of exo-political approach, if carried to any kind of logical conclusion, starts to break down short of positing participation of the UFO itself in the grand cover up. Perhaps "we" have saucers and dissected EBE bodies in undisclosed locations. But my instincts tell me this is unlikely. But we are at any rate in the land of all-is-possible. The ability to keep even a trickle of this from seeping into the public sector in a credible way would signal a breakthrough in the art of security that is frankly mind boggling. Many will no doubt disagree on this crucial point. But I'm not waiting up for disclosure--large or otherwise. Consider the lengths to which the American government went to keep under wraps the Manhattan Project. And still the Russians soon had both crucial information and the bomb itself not long after 1945.
The other path assumes the phenomenon by its very nature to be somehow immune to traditional methods of analysis. It leaves us with virtually only one thing we can say about the UFO, (apologies for repeating myself) that very sane and credible people experience, almost as if by design, things that violate many of our best established and most cherished laws of nature. Our traditional models of reality, the social order and even sense of self, fall victim as well. This has been seen to happen time and time again since 1947 and probably many thousands of years before.
So FWIW, I see "all hats in the ring" as it were. Our relationship with the UFO is, despite our best efforts, more akin to a religion than a field of rational study. Personal testimony has the awesome ring of the kind of a deeply spiritual experience upon which major religions have been founded. What can and cannot be said with evidence amounts to almost nothing beyond personal and subjective experience. Even when the experience of multiple witnesses agree. Which is sometimes does, and sometimes does not.
I continue to applaud those who seek evidence in the sky with cameras and other sophisticated devices. Their approach is as valid as any. I applaud those who sniff the ground surrounding a hypothetical exo-political establishment or stand up and demand answers. Perhaps there is a frangible mask that will someday crack and fall away. But based on sixty years of this stuff, in which "we" (again, we cannot even agree upon who qualifies as this particular "we") are invariably left with ambiguous or no physical evidence at all. I simply fail to see any specific hypothesis as a preferable means by which to explain both the UFO and human responses to it.
This approach sounds good at first. But like attempts to make Newtonian sense of modern particle physics, it takes us to places with almost as many strange questions and irrational behaviors as the UFO itself. We are confronted with the so-called "breakaway civilization" in which human agencies have been, for over sixty years, possessed of the almost magical ability to seamlessly partition hard evidence and advanced scientific study from the worldwide general public. This kind of exo-political approach, if carried to any kind of logical conclusion, starts to break down short of positing participation of the UFO itself in the grand cover up. Perhaps "we" have saucers and dissected EBE bodies in undisclosed locations. But my instincts tell me this is unlikely. But we are at any rate in the land of all-is-possible. The ability to keep even a trickle of this from seeping into the public sector in a credible way would signal a breakthrough in the art of security that is frankly mind boggling. Many will no doubt disagree on this crucial point. But I'm not waiting up for disclosure--large or otherwise. Consider the lengths to which the American government went to keep under wraps the Manhattan Project. And still the Russians soon had both crucial information and the bomb itself not long after 1945.
The other path assumes the phenomenon by its very nature to be somehow immune to traditional methods of analysis. It leaves us with virtually only one thing we can say about the UFO, (apologies for repeating myself) that very sane and credible people experience, almost as if by design, things that violate many of our best established and most cherished laws of nature. Our traditional models of reality, the social order and even sense of self, fall victim as well. This has been seen to happen time and time again since 1947 and probably many thousands of years before.
So FWIW, I see "all hats in the ring" as it were. Our relationship with the UFO is, despite our best efforts, more akin to a religion than a field of rational study. Personal testimony has the awesome ring of the kind of a deeply spiritual experience upon which major religions have been founded. What can and cannot be said with evidence amounts to almost nothing beyond personal and subjective experience. Even when the experience of multiple witnesses agree. Which is sometimes does, and sometimes does not.
I continue to applaud those who seek evidence in the sky with cameras and other sophisticated devices. Their approach is as valid as any. I applaud those who sniff the ground surrounding a hypothetical exo-political establishment or stand up and demand answers. Perhaps there is a frangible mask that will someday crack and fall away. But based on sixty years of this stuff, in which "we" (again, we cannot even agree upon who qualifies as this particular "we") are invariably left with ambiguous or no physical evidence at all. I simply fail to see any specific hypothesis as a preferable means by which to explain both the UFO and human responses to it.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Great post, except this part is too general a statement:
The only places genuine religion is going on that involves UFOs is in isolated cases like The Raëlians. The 20 year span of USAF Projects Sign and Blue Book studies weren't religious. They were military, and I'd certainly not include myself or our group ( USI ) in the religious segment. To justify the claim that ufology in general is a religion, one would have to show evidence of widespread deification of aliens and/or UFOs the same way cargo cults deified airplanes and combined them with worship and rituals. This isn't the reality of the situation. Our group and most other groups I'm aware of that take UFOs seriously have not deified UFOs, and the aim is to find out more about them, not to worship them.
I'm not assuming that the comment above is a slam, but in most of the cases I've seen where the religious parallel card has been played, it's been part of an agenda to discredit whatever it is that it's being applied to. The tactic isn't anything new. Just draw comparisons between the target and something undesirable and whether or not the comparison is true, it serves to tarnish it. So let's clarify the issue. Something is either a religion or it's not. Drawing parallels to religion that degrade the credibility of a field ( intentionally or otherwise ) has a negative impact, so unless one is intending to tarnish a reputation, such parallels are better avoided. Now a few points to debunk the religious analogy:
The only places genuine religion is going on that involves UFOs is in isolated cases like The Raëlians. The 20 year span of USAF Projects Sign and Blue Book studies weren't religious. They were military, and I'd certainly not include myself or our group ( USI ) in the religious segment. To justify the claim that ufology in general is a religion, one would have to show evidence of widespread deification of aliens and/or UFOs the same way cargo cults deified airplanes and combined them with worship and rituals. This isn't the reality of the situation. Our group and most other groups I'm aware of that take UFOs seriously have not deified UFOs, and the aim is to find out more about them, not to worship them.
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Derek Wood
Skilled Investigator
My view is that isolated images/videos in the digital age cannot be used with confidence. Until a sighting is confirmed my multiple observers with images/videos from independent people we need to dismiss all of these claims as they lack rigour.
The bigger question of alien visitation is a more a point of human fascination and our natural curiosity. Given the likelihood that planetary bodies orbit stars comparable to our system, and that these analogues likely run into unfathomably high numbers, we can posit that the essential building blocks for biological evolution do indeed exist. A further, deeper speculation is of course the complexity of this biological evolution. A further and more unsupported posit is the idea that these biologic life forms have evolved to point where they can travel the interstellar divide. We must then add a billions to one probability that they have then visited our planet and flirted with it in vague and teasing ways but never equivocally announced their presence.
The point is we continue to speculate about a hypothesis which is built on a plethora of unsupported and speculative hypothesis which precede it. It makes for deeply interesting conversations and reaches the heart of human wonder; but ultimately, we lack evidence on every level of this multi-layered speculation.
The bigger question of alien visitation is a more a point of human fascination and our natural curiosity. Given the likelihood that planetary bodies orbit stars comparable to our system, and that these analogues likely run into unfathomably high numbers, we can posit that the essential building blocks for biological evolution do indeed exist. A further, deeper speculation is of course the complexity of this biological evolution. A further and more unsupported posit is the idea that these biologic life forms have evolved to point where they can travel the interstellar divide. We must then add a billions to one probability that they have then visited our planet and flirted with it in vague and teasing ways but never equivocally announced their presence.
The point is we continue to speculate about a hypothesis which is built on a plethora of unsupported and speculative hypothesis which precede it. It makes for deeply interesting conversations and reaches the heart of human wonder; but ultimately, we lack evidence on every level of this multi-layered speculation.
Derek Wood
Skilled Investigator
Exactly: this gets right to the heart of the matter. There is too much speculation presented as fact. And major theories then proceed from these 'observations'!
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Again. What I'm seeing is confusion between what UFOs are defined as for the sake of inquiry and what the actual objects described in UFO reports are. When these two concepts are separated, there are plenty of facts upon which to support the definition of UFOs as alien craft. Those facts are based on the content of UFO reports that describe what appear to be such craft, how the official definitions were formulated, and how people in general have interpreted what the word means from its inception all the way up to the present.
What exactly the objects in UFO reports really are and where exactly they're from is another matter. However it is entirely reasonable that if a number of people observe something, the characteristics of which appear to be that of a craft that is strange and seemingly out of this world, and that after investigation by independent specialists, nobody, including USAF officers with Top Secret clearance can identify the craft as being part of any military or civilian project, then it is entirely fair and logical, based on the content of such reports, to consider that if such reports are accurate and true, that what is being reported is actually some sort of alien craft.
That doesn't mean that there aren't other strange phenomena reported in the sky from time to time, like giant birds, Earth lights, ball lightning, and whatever else we might see besides UFOs, and indeed, it would be a complete mistake to classify those as UFOs because not all strange phenomena seen in the sky look like alien craft, and that is exactly the point I've been trying to make. So maybe we're actually in complete agreement on the fundamental point, but just coming at it from a different angle.
Now with respect to the ETH, I don't claim that it is a certainty that UFOs are ET. I do claim that they are alien, and by alien, I mean it pretty much as it is defined in the English language, which strongly implies that they could be ET, which IMO is perfectly fair, but also includes other possibilities, e.g. "strange: outside somebody’s normal or previous experience and seeming strange and sometimes threatening" - Encarta, or even more specifically, as analogous to its usage in biology where it means, a species that's non-native to the environment or body in which it is found.
In this case UFOs appear to be non-native to the body of human civilization that the vast majority of us are familiar with. So perhaps they might come from some remote unexplored place in the depths of the ocean, or are part of some secret society. I don't know, but either way, the word "alien" still covers that with respect to the subject matter, whereas ET doesn't, which is exactly why I prefer to use the term "alien" rather than "ET". Personally, I do think that the ETH is the most logical candidate, and that the originating location is probably someplace within 100 Light Years. However exotic ET possibilities. like worlds in other universes might also be the case, though that is much more of a stretch.
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Ron Away
Paranormal Adept
There seems to be a hostility towards the ET hypothesis or IDH.I wonder how that forgotten tribe in Brazil who had never met modern man(spotted a few years back throwing spears at helicopters) regarded us.Are we gods,demons,monsters,aliens or are we holographic or a mass delusion?
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
A valid point. To those natives, we were aliens coming into their world. One cargo cult I saw on a video believed that airplanes were like great spirit birds that humans had learned to control. We are advanced enough to be able to remove the supernatural elements from our list of possibilities and recognize that any sufficiently advanced technology could be responsible for UFOs, and that such a possibility is far more logical that going backward and trying to invoke something supernatural. Yet there are still plenty of people out there who still seem to hang onto the supernatural for explanations.
My take on the IDH ( Interdimensional Hypothesis ), if that's what you were alluding to above, is that in the strictest literal interpretation, it's not logically possible. However more loosely interpreted to mean the same as the Alternate Universe Hypothesis ( An exotic subset of the ETH ), it is logically possible, but seemingly far less likely than simply being from our own known universe.
boomerang
Paranormal Adept
Be assured this is not intended as a slam or insult. Nor does it refer to often well publicized and tightly knit cults, in either a specific or general sense. Very few of us who follow the history of this subject do so in search of the religious.
However, I think we ignore parallels between patterns of religious development within cultures throughout history and what is presented to "us" by the UFO encounter experience at our peril. I place "us" in quotation marks because, within the context of which we speak, a consensus regarding 'who knows what' is also denied us. What most of humanity has on which to base its reaction to and assessment of the UFO and other high strangeness phenomena are inspired visions by sincere individuals and a smattering of the modern equivalent of mystical or holy relics in the form of trace evidence that almost, but never quite, rises to the level of something with which to proceed scientifically. This is historically a formula for the creation of spiritual mythologies that may become organized religions. As 21st century thinkers we seek rational explanation only to find it repeatedly turned inside out in such a way that leaves us in a state of awed confusion.
Please note that I am not equating visions with irrelevant hallucinations. People really are seeing, or perhaps more accurately perceiving, something anomalous.
Appeals to the existence of sequestered hard evidence in the form of genuine video or crash retrieval material leads again to the "us" question. Whether or not I believe in a more enlightened human elite would probably depend on what day of the week one would ask ! It is perhaps the thorniest of all questions in this mess.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
That is the spirit I thought you had intended
. My comment was mainly for anyone else who happens to come along and read our discussion. I always like to keep it clear in people's minds that ufology studies is ( or at least should be ) an objective field of interest where we recognize the existence of the cultural facets and report on them the way an objective news reporter or investigative journalist would.