Are there believers posing as skeptics?

[5tomidnite]

Is it even possible to pose as a skeptic? Skeptics typically require evidence, and that evidence usually speaks for itself. So posing as a skeptic would end up leading any so-called believer down the same path as a genuine skeptic.

Sorry, you've confused me. Why couldn't a person pose as a skeptic?

Recently I seem to have found myself in this exact same situation, occupying the role of our resident skeptic. But at the same time, I also believe strange things do happen. So although it seems oxymoronic, it does seem possible to be a skeptical believer. I also tend to think I'm not alone. Here on the Paracast forum, the community seems far less polarized one way or the other, and capable of a depth of discernment that often moves us forward rather than merely entrenching positions.

That's why in this thread I spoke of "true believers", "skeptical believers", "skeptical disbelievers" and "true disbelievers". Believer and disbeliever referring to their personal "biases" on the subject.

Your post reminds me that I should be clearer when I define terms.

 

[Randall]

Sorry, you've confused me. Why couldn't a person pose as a skeptic?

I was just participating in the discussion more than trying to dispute that a person could pose as ( pretend to be ) a skeptic, the idea being that pretending should end up with the impostor drawing the same conclusions as a real skeptic, so what would be the point? However I suppose that if one were trying to infiltrate the skeptical community for the purpose of spreading disinformation, then that would be another story. Personally I can't imagine why anyone would want to waste their time on something like that, but I suppose it's possible. If I were to conjecture on who might want to infiltrate the skeptical community it would be anti-ufology disinformation agents.

 

[Tyger]

are there film critics posing as film makers?
are ufos unidentified flying objects or flying saucers?

I love the first sentence!

I am totally puzzled by this discussion. Probably because I am sleepy.

Aren't we all or nothing sometimes? I absolutely think that there has to be other life and civilizations elsewhere in the universe - I mean look at the size of the thing. Really. Yet there is a persuasive point of view that says there isn't - and I can go with that, too. Why does it have to be all one way or another? That takes the fun out of intellectual exploration.

What's the 'posing' about? Do people mean 'playing devil's advocate'? I do that - I argue different sides - even to myself - to shake out the germane facts. Is that 'posing'?

I have to say if Aliens are visiting the earth - and they are anything like are being represented - they are pretty dumb, don't you think? I mean, if there is life 'out there' I want it to be a little bit more imaginative and sophisticated. When I read about these aliens I think I'm in a pretty bad science fiction story. I mean, would this get published if someone had tried to peddle it? Give me Olaf Stapledon's 'Starmaker' any day.

I recall a story told of a very famous and highly revered esotericist/occultist teacher at the turn of the last century. It was at the end of one of his lectures during the Q&A session. He was being asked many questions and finally this question came to him: was there life on other planets? He did not answer at once. He often would take several moments before he answered a question but in this instance the pause lasted an unusually long time. Finally he answered. What he answered was along these lines: that his 'task' was in regards life on this earth and the task set before all human beings here. His 'task' did not include this area and he essentially side-stepped the question. The lack of a definitive answer is viewed as significant.

My point is - and I do have one - is that if life is 'out there' it is so beyond our current puny imaginations that I don't think we have the capacity to recognize it at this point.

 

[boomerang]

Looks like what we are discussing here is the long practiced art of disinformation. We have long suspected that certain self-proclaimed 'skeptics' posing as critical thinkers are in fact acting on behalf of third parties to muddle evidence and issues so as to lead the genuine critical thinker (who may well be skeptical of fantastic claims) to draw certain front-loaded conclusions. Anyone familiar with the history of the UFO could easily make a short list of people who would seem to fit the profile of disinformation agent. I won't mention names. Some are living and some long deceased.

 

[Tyger]

Looks like what we are discussing here is the long practiced art of disinformation. We have long suspected that certain self-proclaimed 'skeptics' posing as critical thinkers are in fact acting on behalf of third parties to muddle evidence and issues so as to lead the genuine critical thinker (who may well be skeptical of fantastic claims) to draw certain front-loaded conclusions. Anyone familiar with the history of the UFO could easily make a short list of people who would seem to fit the profile of disinformation agent. I won't mention names. Some are living and some long deceased.

It's just so paranoid seeming. I think it's one of the most off-putting aspects when sitting with a group of UFO people - this sense that people think there are 'people in the audience who have come to watch us'. Or worse, that 'there are aliens in the audience.' It's creepy. The one MUFON meeting I have thus far attended had something along this idea stated by the speaker. It's just not believeable and is - imho anyway - not healthy to live that way.

 

[boomerang]

It's just so paranoid seeming. I think it's one of the most off-putting aspects when sitting with a group of UFO people - this sense that people think there are 'people in the audience who have come to watch us'. Or worse, that 'there are aliens in the audience.' It's creepy. The one MUFON meeting I have thus far attended had something along this idea stated by the speaker. It's just not believeable and is - imho anyway - not healthy to live that way.

If you are saying this field is afflicted by unhealthy levels of paranoia and suspicion, I would have to agree. But I also think something about the interaction of the UFO and our government and military has been undeniably odd.

The historical example that comes most readily to mind is the fact that the civilian UFO investigation group NICAP was largely founded by a hand full of high ranking government and military officials. Sitting on its board of directors was Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, previously appointed by President Harry Truman as first head of the CIA created in the year (you guessed it) 1947. I can think of no conventional explanation why someone of Hillenkoetter's stature would be publicly chasing saucers. And their are other examples as well. So-- paranoia in this field indeed tends to feed on itself. UFOlogists too often breathe their own exhaust fumes. But I think fear and suspicion is also fueled by the history of the phenomenon.

 

[Tyger]

If you are saying this field is afflicted by unhealthy levels of paranoia and suspicion, I would have to agree. But I also think something about the interaction of the UFO and our government and military has been undeniably odd.

The historical example that comes most readily to mind is the fact that the civilian UFO investigation group NICAP was largely founded by a hand full of high ranking government and military officials. Sitting on its board of directors was Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, previously appointed by President Harry Truman as first head of the CIA created in the year (you guessed it) 1947. I can think of no conventional explanation why someone of Hillenkoetter's stature would be publicly chasing saucers. And their are other examples as well. So-- paranoia in this field indeed tends to feed on itself. UFOlogists too often breathe their own exhaust fumes. But I think fear and suspicion is also fueled by the history of the phenomenon.

Love that bolded sentence.

Well, I'm happy to have chanced upon a chat site that seems to be grounded. Or has a phalanx of grounded posters. I am also learning a lot. There is a whole lot of information here. Currently I am reading about the January 1, 1970 UFO incident in British. Columbia Canada Night Shift Nurses and the Flying Saucer Men | Mysterious Universe I got the link on one of the threads. Excellent article. So some happy summer days' (or in my case, nights') reading.

 

[Randall]

It's just so paranoid seeming. I think it's one of the most off-putting aspects when sitting with a group of UFO people - this sense that people think there are 'people in the audience who have come to watch us'. Or worse, that 'there are aliens in the audience.' It's creepy. The one MUFON meeting I have thus far attended had something along this idea stated by the speaker. It's just not believeable and is - imho anyway - not healthy to live that way.

Well, ignoring possibilities simply because we can't bring ourselves to seriously consider them out of some kind of fear based social conditioning isn't healthy either. I've done a lot of reading about what goes on in ufology and the ufology community, and I've seen a UFO myself ( and the black helicopters and MIB ). So when it comes to the powers that be, or alien intelligences, the bottom line is that I know they know and they know I know, and life goes on. So why bother being paranoid? It accomplishes nothing. Besides, if they really wanted me gone, I'd be gone already. Instead they've tolerated my little ufology interest group for over 20 years. Someday I just hope we can bridge the gap in a more positive way. My door is always open ( and even if it's not, I'm sure they know how to get in anyway ) .

 

[Tyger]

I've seen a UFO myself ( and the black helicopters and MIB ). So when it comes to the powers that be, or alien intelligences, the bottom line is that I know they know and they know I know, and life goes on. So why bother being paranoid? It accomplishes nothing. Besides, if they really wanted me gone, I'd be gone already. Instead they've tolerated my little ufology interest group for over 20 years. Someday I just hope we can bridge the gap in a more positive way. My door is always open ( and even if it's not, I'm sure they know how to get in anyway ) .

I would be interested to hear the story - have you posted it here somewhere? I am a huge skeptic of black helicopters and MIB.

Has anyone on this chat site worked for the government? In a place - like one of the labs - that do research? I recall once being at a movie (in a 'company town') in which the story line depicted some research facility - and it looked pretty darn spiffy. There was general laughter, and someone even said out loud - 'I'd like to see that kind of funding'.

There's a disjunct. People seem to posit some uber-efficient government taking notice of random ufologists. I'd argue there isn't the time or money or interest - or competency. Government bureaucracy is dumb. It's lumbering and inefficient.

 

[Randall]

I would be interested to hear the story - have you posted it here somewhere? I am a huge skeptic of black helicopters and MIB.

Actually I'm pretty skeptical myself, and I'm prepared to consider the black helicopters as coincidental. I just found it kind of odd that there would be an unmarked dull black bell helicopter hovering just over the trees about 50 yards from my house one day, and that when I went outside with my binoculars to have a look, I could see two pilots in it plain as day, and there was some kind of dome pod under it that had what looked like a camera array in it not unlike that basketball thing those Google map cars have, but with bigger lenses.

Within 10 seconds of me focusing on them I could see them recognize I was watching, rotate the chopper 180 degrees, and head directly away from me. Who knows? Maybe it was some kind of low level mapping chopper ( if there is such a thing - with no markings ). Then there are the other ones that for whatever reason, again coincidentally or otherwise, every 2 or three months seem to pick me out in traffic and follow me at a safe distance. And then there's the other ones that for whatever reason tend to circle around my block now and then. And the other night we had one that sounded like it was about 100m feet directly over the house.

I know this sounds like a lot of helicopters, but it's not that it happens every day all day, and about 96% of the time I think it's either traffic, police, or commercial units. In fact I know it's been the police unit many times because it's got a big logo on it that you can clearly see through binoculars. What are the rest? Honestly I don't know for sure. It's only been in about the last 5 years that I've crossed paths with so many helicopters in general. The MIB are another story however, and a certainty. The one encounter that left me with no doubt happened years ago before I even knew what MIB were all about. I knew about the government agents that had allegedly confiscated film, but not the so-called high-strangeness incidents. I've described the experience someplace here, and also on my page on the USI website.

But regardless of my experiences with black helicopters or the MIB, the bottom line is still the same. When I say, "I know they know, and they know I know", I'm making a general statement based on the fact that I started USI over 20 years ago and the website comes up near the top of Google searches for the word "ufology", which means that they and along with the rest of the world can see it, and I don't hide my identity. So it would be completely naïve to think those who monitor the UFO situation have never noticed it before, and it would be equally naïve of me to think that if I know UFOs are real that they don't. Add to this all the other witnesses, and all the resources at their disposal to investigate and what we have are two groups of people who both know the truth separated by a wall of bureaucracy made impenetrable by issues of security and defense. This is the reality that exists, but isn't obvious to everyone.

 

[boomerang]

the bottom line is that I know they know and they know I know, and life goes on.

Anyone reading the history of this phenomenon will have no problem with the veracity of this. Most people who become visibly involved with this phenomenon experience some degree high strangeness.

---------

Addendum: Just read the black Cadillac MIB account on your website. Very interesting.

 

[Tyger]

No one is interested on that level. It's simply not worth anyone's while to be focusing that kind of attention - physical resources, human beings - no, it doesn't exist. Hey, we are in an economic free-fall - the money doesn't exist for that kind of stuff - and even if there was someone, somewhere, who wanted to do that, he'd be hard pressed to convince anyone to funnel money down to that level. Money is funneling up and out, folks. The US is being robbed blind - but that's another story.

Paranoia is a projection - and a self absorption. No one cares at the level you are suggesting.

There is something called finding confirmation of what you want to see. We find evidence - we interpret evidence - based on our pre-conceptions. Think in a different way and something different will happen - it's a simple experiment - try it.

 

[boomerang]

There is something called finding confirmation of what you want to see. We find evidence - we interpret evidence - based on our pre-conceptions. Think in a different way and something different will happen - it's a simple experiment - try it.

No argument regarding inattention to major issues while Rome burns !

As for UFOs, you are making perfect sense. But it is my personal belief after many years of reading and asking around, that the UFO phenomenon is real and does not [make sense]. Opinions will vary. Which is why the engaging debate goes on.

 

[Randall]

No one is interested on that level.

The agencies we're talking about are neither concerned with, nor affected by the social issues you and I experience on a daily basis, and the amount of resources required to keep track of every UFO interest group on the planet is miniscule compared to the intel they soak up every day, most done automatically. You have been following the Snowden intrigue right? You have heard of Echelon right? You do know what Air Force Space Command is right? The capacity of these operations aren't affected by demonstrations on Wall Street or social unrest. In fact society could devolve into chaos, and these military structures would be among the last to go down. I'm not sure what the reference to paranoia is about. Benewitz became paranoid, but he also had reasons. As for me, I'm just reporting what I see, not drawing any specific conclusions other than what I've already stated. Simply reporting observations, some of which seem odd doesn't make one paranoid. Saying "They're out to get me." without sufficient evidence might be paranoid.

 

[Tyger]

But regardless of my experiences with black helicopters or the MIB, the bottom line is still the same. When I say, "I know they know, and they know I know", I'm making a general statement based on the fact that I started USI over 20 years ago and the website comes up near the top of Google searches for the word "ufology", which means that they and along with the rest of the world can see it, and I don't hide my identity. So it would be completely naïve to think those who monitor the UFO situation have never noticed it before, and it would be equally naïve of me to think that if I know UFOs are real that they don't. Add to this all the other witnesses, and all the resources at their disposal to investigate and what we have are two groups of people who both know the truth separated by a wall of bureaucracy made impenetrable by issues of security and defense. This is the reality that exists, but isn't obvious to everyone.

Did you edit this and add some stuff? I came back on to say that I don't mean to belittle a sense of being seen, or known - and I shouldn't have done that, and it was bothering me. This is a complex area - but when I came back on I saw the text in and after the bolded and I understand what you mean now a bit better and I can see your point.

I perhaps should explain that I have had a curious experience in my life - a handful of times I have been 'accused' of being an alien. Now this has it's amusing aspects but it can also be jarring, and in a few instances I received it as hurtful. I'll tell you about three of them.

Long, long ago when I was very young, about 20, I was in San Francisco at a street market. I was looking over a cart filled with swaths of cloths. A man was across from me just watching me. I looked up, our eyes met - he came over to me. Trust me when I say there was nothing sexual or in any way overt about this. His eyes were friendly but interested. He came over to me and said: "You are an alien." I went back to looking at the swaths of cloth - obviously - and he walked away, and I chalked that up to being 'an experience' and filed it away.

Go forward a few years, I'm in my late 20's, and I am in upper New York State, at Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan's 'Abode of the Message'. I am visiting for the day, attending a few classes, hanging out in the sauna - co-ed, all naked (the usual) - and then I wander over to the meditation hall. The few of us there start talking about different ways of meditating and 'Trespasso' is mentioned and I say I've done it and this guy wants to learn it so we sit down opposite each other and I explain a few things and we start. We mediate for a while - and when it is over - we are chilling out and this guy says to me: 'You're an alien." Hoo-kay! Moving along....

Many years pass, I am living in New Mexico and this is about the time that the civic fathers of Roswell NM come up with the idea of marketing themselves as an alien landing site - not sure, maybe the museum was just being built, not sure. I am with a couple of friends, we've been to Alamagordo and are looking to visit the Array and we wind up meeting this group of young college women traveling with their college professor to Roswell NM. They are from Notre Dame U, in fact, which when I heard why they were going to Roswell made no sense - Catholic university professor taking his students on a 'pilgrimag'e to Roswell? Unique. So we talk - my two friends are scientists - and Roswell is discussed. After a while, we are about to leave the restaurant when one of the young women comes up to me and says: 'You're an alien.' Oh 'fer pity's sake!

My point about all this is - I am a bona fide Human Being, born and raised on earth. I am not alien. But people see what they want to see. People interpret what they see using their pre-conceptions. Helicopters and MIB's - what would they be looking for? watching for? what would justify that level of surveillance? Logically - think it through. My question is not frivolous - what would they be trying to 'catch'? There are so many more elegant ways of looking over our shoulders than big cumbersome heliocopters and MIB. There is an innate illogic to the whole MIB idea, anyway.

I'm interested in UFO's - it's a cool subject - but the jumping to conclusions - hopping from point a to point q without passing Go - without logic of some kind - is off-putting. And the assumptions are so rapid and without basis in - for lack of a better word - reality - that it's like dealing with Elvis Sightings. It just ain't so, can't be so.

 

[Tyger]

The agencies we're talking about are neither concerned with, nor affected by the social issues you and I experience on a daily basis, and the amount of resources required to keep track of every UFO interest group on the planet is miniscule compared to the intel they soak up every day, most done automatically. You have been following the Snowden intrigue right? You have heard of Echelon right? You do know what Air Force Space Command is right? The capacity of these operations aren't affected by demonstrations on Wall Street or social unrest. In fact society could devolve into chaos, and these military structures would be among the last to go down. I'm not sure what the reference to paranoia is about. Benewitz became paranoid, but he also had reasons. As for me, I'm just reporting what I see, not drawing any specific conclusions other than what I've already stated. Simply reporting observations, some of which seem odd doesn't make one paranoid. Saying "They're out to get me." without sufficient evidence might be paranoid.

LATER: Just saw your post above mine. Understand where you are coming from - maybe. I can see that I am going to be doing a lot of reading. My questions still stand though.

 

[Randall]

Did you edit this and add some stuff? I came back on to say that I don't mean to belittle a sense of being seen, or known - and I shouldn't have done that, and it was bothering me.

Sometimes I go back and edit things in order to make them clearer, correct bad grammar and such, but I don't change the intended meaning. This ability to edit and even delete posts is one of the reasons I stay here at the Paracast. It's very free ( as in freedom to edit as we see fit ) and moderated by some of the best folks around. Also, I'm OK with people being honest, so long as it's intended to move the discussion forward, I can take a fair bit of criticism without being offended.

This is a complex area - but when I came back on I saw the text in and after the bolded and I understand what you mean now a bit better and I can see your point. I perhaps should explain that I have had a curious experience in my life - a handful of times I have been 'accused' of being an alien. Now this has it's amusing aspects but it can also be jarring, and in a few instances I received it as hurtful. I'll tell you about three of them ...

Thanks for sharing your experiences. They're rather curious, but nothing to be concerned about. One of the things I've learned over the years is that even the people we are closest to are so different from us that if we could trade places with them for a day and see the world through their eyes and the lens of their worldviews, that they would seem alien to what we're used to. However when other people haven't figured that out about the world, they tend to think that anyone who interacts with them and lets those differences below the surface show through, are "weirdoes" or "aliens" or whatever. They're basically just being immature, even if they don't realize it themselves. Have you ever had the opportunity to ask these people what they meant, or were they just wise cracks?

I'm interested in UFO's - it's a cool subject - but the jumping to conclusions - hopping from point a to point q without passing Go - without logic of some kind - is off-putting. And the assumptions are so rapid and without basis in - for lack of a better word - reality - that it's like dealing with Elvis Sightings. It just ain't so, can't be so.

Well you're in the right place to discuss your interest. I recently posted a chart ( Acceptance of Reality ) that deals with the relationships between the issues you mention. I'm curious to know how would you rate yourself with respect to UFOs or other paranormal topics.

 

[Tyger]

They're basically just being immature, even if they don't realize it themselves. Have you ever had the opportunity to ask these people what they meant, or were they just wise cracks?

No, this was not that at all - except for the first incident I related, I know the others meant it in a UFO kind of way (the first incident I assume that was the way it was meant - what other way could it have been meant? For my own reasons at the time I didn't wish to engage the man in a conversation about what he said. Interesting line if that was what it was - but I kind of know why he said it to me). In fact, the young woman from the Roswell restaurant wound up coming back over to me to apologize when I made a comment to the professor about it - this was the only time I found what was said slightly unpleasant because she was insisting that a physical characteristic I have was evidence of my being an alien. I think she thought it was perhaps exciting - to me it was an indication on her part of a kind of delusion.

The empiricist can have such a strong structure in the mind that nothing else is allowed in - that, I think, everyone likely on this chat site would agree on. All is a posteriori.

Yet ufology seems to have an equally strong structure in the mind that becomes the narrative through which the world is seen - and my three incidents were an attempt to show that. Perhaps too personal for a site like this but they seemed relevant. Have others had this experience?

However, we also manifest what happens to us - that I do believe because I have experienced it - so that those three experiences also have another aspect to them that has me involved in their 'creation'. This brings us to the UFO situation.

 

[Burnt State]

Yet Ufology seems to have an equally strong structure in the mind that becomes the narrative through which the world is seen - and my three incidents were an attempt to show that. Perhaps too personal for a site like this but they seemed relevant. Have others had this experience?

However, we also manifest what happens to us - that I do believe because I have experienced it - so that those three experiences also have another aspect to them that has me involved in their 'creation'. This brings us to the UFO situation.

I wish I had followed this conversation a little more closely this past summer, but the genius of forums is that you are always time traveling in your mind to whatever thread suits your thoughts that day. Consequently I'm quite interested in your identification as an alien amongst us, something I've often considered , and how our own belief systems navigate the world for us. A good chunk of our waking life is on autopilot, but its automative system is impregnated by our creation - a kind of mental parthenogenesis. So it's really no surprise, from what I've gleaned of your personal history, that you've placed yourself, adorned yourself and defined yourself in situations, amongst people who will every now and then call you 'alien'. If you draw a line through the median of your life experience you can see the role of the associative at work in shaping and creating your own reality.

For me, I have found my associative organizaing identity/disorder/principle is to be a listener then rebroadcaster. I don't know what it is about my personality, adornment or definition that does this (that's not completely true but...), but often I find myself on the receiving end of the intense stories of others, usually emotional and traumatic, and then I try to respond to those stories on an individual and meta level the best I can to move others and change the situation, learning even more about people and interpersonal power dynamics along the way.

Ufo's can work this way too I suppose, though I personally remain wildly interested and entirely skeptical - zetetic is a good descriptor. But, can we be the manifestors of the UFO or, is there an invisible third party manipulating situations so that we become willing participants? This really does plug right back into the current thread, 'consciousness and the paranormal' We are involved in the creation, as witnesses, to art or events; we are the complementary factor. And in doing so, in participating in the experience, we are irrevocably changed. Perhaps it's just our nature, and we respond to the code that drives our being at the atomic level so that we will evolve. Perhaps there are external forces guiding us and stimulating us. Same old same old - conundrum.

 

[Burnt State]

Re: paranoia and gov't bureaucracy. @Tyger the history of the UFO phenomenon is loaded with all sorts of people who are themselves paranoid or were made paranoid by agents of the gov't - these are legitimate and well documented events. The thing to separate in gov't is that many independent agencies with their own funding take it upon themselves to determine who to spy on because thae are deemed deviants or potential threats to social order: protestors, anti-poverty and anti-racist activists, communists, peace protestors, and yes, ufologists. It's how power responds best to people suggesting realities alternate to the party line. Which groups gets the most $$$ devoted to monitoring, intimidation, opening their mail, tapping phones, heliopter observation etc. is dependent on what are the current tensions and influences of the day. We still live in that world. And yes, perhaps the most common instance of self-deluded paranoid thought is to believe that the helicopters are watching them. I've heard that one a lot.